Rebuild: A Warrior From A (Counter) Earth
by CerberusTheHunter
Summary: Shinji Ikari Cabot, gorean warrior, arrives on Earth to pilot Evangelion Unit 01 and save both Earth and Gor. Along the way he takes a slave, makes friends, and loses it all. Neon Genesis Evangelion meets John Norman's Gorean Saga and nobody is safe!
1. Chapter 1

**The Tattooed Shahrazad**

The bandits had camped in some abandoned holdfast with their p[lunder. The rain came down in thick sheets but the clouds were thin and moonlight flowed into the half buried shelter.

Five girls and a chest were their bounty from the travelers they had attacked. A handful of gold's worth of loot and three men had died. It was a wash but at least the shares would be bigger with less ways to split.

The woman were alright. Four of the girls were no more than average, but the fifth was quite the sight. She had been in the lead wagon, where they had taken the chest from, presumably the leader's wench. She had long brown hair and the shape of her body was impressive, if nothing special. Her curves were pleasant to the eye, her chest full and high. It was her skin that was unique.

From her ankles to the base of her neck, even across her hands, every bit of her skin was covered in colorful tattoos of myriad images. A sigil was even drawn about the floral brand on her left leg.

The storm was strong, they would not move until at least morning. They all thought about the woman, but it was Orum who asked. The bloody twit.

"Oi, girl, what's with the ink?"

"This one's body is tapestry to tell an epic, master."

"Ugh. Is it long?"

"Quite."

"Don't get smart wit me girl."

"Would master prefer this one get stupid?"

"Oi!" Orum shouted and rose, hand on his knife.

"Orum." Their leader said, and the man stopped in his tracks.

"Yeah boss?"

"Shaddup."

"Yeah boss."

"Which epic is it?" The leader now asked, looking at the tattooed woman.

"The great war in which Gor and Earth fought together, warriors for the priest kings to defeat an enemy beyond even their great might."

"Bah, that's an old one, never happened."

"This one was there. As she tells it is how it occurred, fully and truthfully."

"Truly? How old are you girl?"

"Old enough."

"Fine." The boss said. He settled himself and set his sword across his lap. Of the four men who remained, only he wore the crimson of the warriors.

"Tell your tale girl, it will be something to do until the rain stops."

The girl rose so quickly some of the men grasped for their weapons. Her head forward, her long hair covered her face.

"Come with me masters, across the seas of time. This is the story of warriors…"

She raised her right arm, flashing a sword's blade from her elbow to her wrist in the moonlight.

"Of kings and ubars!"

The girl swung her left hand across her body, her fingers spread wide to show a golden crown across her palm, but only for a moment before her fist closed around it. There were lightning bolts across her knuckles.

"But it begins…

With a shake of her head her hair was over her shoulder, revealing her torso. She cradled her belly, as a pregnant woman might. A monstrous face was half covered in darkness. Menacing yellow eyes and great steel teeth around a blood red mouth.

"With a mother and a child."

* * *

 **At home with the Ikaris**

" _Tassanr_?"

"Da! Da!"

"No no no, daddy is in the other room." Yui Ikari said, pulling the spoonful of food away from her infant son's grasping hands. "Can you ta-san-ehr? How about ta-ta? Can you say Ta-ta?"

The dark haired little baby shook his head and grunted as he strained to stand up in his high chair.

"Gah, child you are as stubborn as your damned father. Hmmmm…" Yui stuck the spoon back in the bowl of purreed vegetables, closed her eyes and took a breath. When she opened them again, she got a fresh spoonful, held it up for her son and then pointed at herself.

"Say… _Kajira_ , _oijih vana'she_?"

"Ka…ka…"

"aye…"

"Ka-geeear-a!"

"That's my good boy!" Yui said with a grin from ear to ear and stuck the spoon in his mouth. "Such a clever little warrior."

"Yui…" Gendo Ikari said with a sigh as he stepped into the room. "What have I said?"

The dark haired woman shrugged her shoulders and sighed. "That you will deny him his heritage and rightful place as a man."

"Oh for… that is not what I said and you know it."

"It is what master meaaaant…" Yui said, rolling her eyes and her head along with it in an over dramatic gesture to go with her whining.

"Don't you even start." Gendo said, sitting across the table opposite from his wife and next to Shinji in his high chair. "And if you are going to call me master again, perhaps I should send you to fetch a switch for disobedience."

Yui's sat straighter, her eyes lighting up. "Promise?"

"Girl…"

Yui Ikari looked back to their son and fed him another spoonful. "He deserves to know his heritage."

"His heritage? Yui, we escaped from Gor. Escaped. We left the brutality, we left so that we could live in peace, so HE…" Gendo pointed at their son. "could grow up without ever having to fear what we did."

"Fear? Ha!" Yui set down the spoon and the jar of baby food. "You have forgotten what you were." She seethed, full of scorn. She stood, staring her husband down.

"Watch. Your. Tongue." Gendo said, unmoving.

"Or what?" Yui snapped in the Gorean language he so hated. "Your name struck fear into the hearts of men and would again if you would stop trying to forget why! You could rule here like a king if you would just stop denying what you are."

"I was a murderer and a thief."

"You were a man!" She screamed, hands like claws trying to dig into the table.

Gendo grew very silent and glared at his wife. Years of conditioning made Yui avert her eyes and adopt a submissive posture. Her hands were off the table, grasped together behind her and her head was down. One bare foot in front of the other, like a dancer, she lowered herself before her husband. Though she may prod him, speak freely to him, even direct and manipulate him there were lines one did not cross. She had demeaned him, insulted him.

"A real man does not need to loot or kill. Just like I don't need to beat you now." Gendo said. He pushed his glasses up his nose, looking at the top of her bowed head as he spoke. "A real man simply needs to protect what he has. … and besides dictators and pirates have a tendency to die quickly on Earth. It's one more reason why I like it."

"But it's so boring." Yui complained.

"Boring is safe."

"You are... Right. I'm sorry. I think Shinji is done, I am going to put him down." A small gasp caught at the back of her throat. "I mean if I may, mas-"

"Go, you don't need my leave."

With that Yui swept her son out of the high chair and padded out of the room, eyes down. Twenty minutes later she found Gendo in the home office they shared. Her desk was low to the ground with stacks paper all around and a small cushion where she sat, all over a plush carpet. Gendo's side had a steel sitting desk and swivel chair with carefully arranged files.

Gendo did not hear his wife approach. She had been far too well trained for that. Barefoot and unbelled, she glided without a sound. When she did make noise it was familiar and deliberate. He had realized after encountering the creatures when he first came to earth, that women such as Yui were a bit like cats in that way. They may be perfectly silent, when they made their presence known it was calling for attention.

Yui's call came as her knees rapped on the floor, followed by the faint squeak of friction between skin and polished hardwood as she spread her legs.

Gendo, for his part, did not turn his head to look. He had his reasons, chief among them being that meeting her behavior that way would be encouraging her. Even if that had not been his concern though, he would not have looked. Even if this had been long ago and on another world, he would not have looked. These reasons were rather similar, both were born of a desire to correct behavior.

Then, had she come to his chambers and so brazenly demanded he cease what he was doing and pay attention to her, he would have not looked at her until he had finished and found a whip.

Now though, Gendo had asked her, then told her, then ORDERED HER, not to behave this way. To give the slightest reward, the barest look, would be to encourage it further.

"This girl is sorry for speaking back Master, please forgive her." She said in her most pleasant voice. Soft, high, and with special, almost musical in its affection, emphasis placed on _that_ word. Master. And every bit of resistance he had broke.

He loved her, by the sardar he loved her. He had not loved her from the moment he laid eyes on her. His love was not like a raging bonefire, nor the first hints of spring. Nothing so trite.

He had spent most of his life on his home world at sea, on wooden ship and under canvas sail. Men were born and died. Cities rose and fell. Homestones were sworn over and sundered. The sea though, the sea was eternal.

In his love he was the ship that plowed the waves. She was the sea.

He looked down and to his left. She was not wearing the skirt and cardigan from before. Instead she wore silk. It was the finest sort, from the spiders of the forest near Ar. It was dyed such that it was a pale grey at the shoulders and descended to a true sable color at the very bottom hem.

Over each shoulder, a piece, no wider than the knuckles of her petite hands, came together to provide meager covering to her chest, the two parts held just at the border of covering her breasts, but never meeting, by golden chain that sparkled and danced in the light. He knew the garment, the back was the same but allowed to spread wide to expose most of her back, a very alluring sight with a slim and tight woman like her.

The two parts came together, woven in their shape, not stitched, far below the belly button. Had the slightest weight of her son's birth remained, it would be visible. There was only the bare definition of her abdomen, visible only because of how the light fell upon her belly. Had the garment split any lower the tip of her sex would share that light. Groomed as she kept herself, there was only bare flesh. In the rear the part would have come together below the tail bone, exposing the upper reach of the gap between the buttocks.

She kneeled in Nadu, a pleasing if basic way for a girl to present herself. Her heels were up with her toes flat to the floor and the arches pressed together. Her knees were spread far enough to quarter a circle and her hands laid, palms up and fingers straight, on her thighs. Her back was straight, her shoulders back and her head bowed, her short and loose hair obscuring her face from her husband, her _master_.

She let out a happy sigh when his rough hand, still calloused despite nearly a decade away from home, landed on her head.

"When a beast misbehaves, her owner is more at fault than she. It is his burden to maintain training and discipline. I have not done that, you need not apologize."

His hand moved to her cheek and Yui lifted her hands, holding onto his arm. This was better, this was how it had always been and how she wished it could still be.

"Vana'she…" She purred.

"Ja jula kajira."

Yui moaned, loudly and from the back of her throat like a growl. His glorious slave girl. That is what he had always called her just before…

Gendo's soft patting turned into an iron grip and he hauled Yui up by her hair, silk unfurling beneath her to hang past her knees.

...Just before he did that.

"Fora." He commanded, speaking through a toothy smirk. Gendo was not a man to smile often, but her favorite was that cruel sneer.

"A kajira fori va Vana'she!" Yui pleaded. It was sweet release to speak this way, for him to handle her so. When he replied with a snarl and a snap of his teeth she offered no resistance as he pulled her to his desk. His breaths were deep, loud, _hungry_. With a sweep of his arm he sent papers, binders and pens to the floor.

Yui moaned again when he pulled her to the desk by her hair. She was hungry too. She wanted him, she wanted her master. She wanted the vicious raider she had fallen in love with so many years ago. The man, the true and real man of Gor who had taken her, taken and remade her will as his very own, who had tamed her and shown her what it truly was to be a woman.

He still had one hand in her hair, the other working open his trousers. Yui reached over head and grabbed the edge of the desk in each hand. Before he could finish, she wrapped her legs about him and pulled him against her. The silk pushed to one side, she could feel the coarse fabric of his clothes, the cool metal of his belt buckle and his sharp zipper pressed against her flesh and it felt so damned good!

Gendo worked himself free of his pants. His hand left her hair, reaching for metal around her neck, but there was none. His growling breath turned to an irritated roar. Clawed fingers dug into her breast instead, shoving the silk aside. The slave girl squealed beneath him.

In the moment they coupled until the last afterglow of ecstasy faded, they were not over a desk in an office in Japan on the planet Earth. They were on a tarn ship on rolling waves, or in an alcove of The Four Chains, that seedy tavern back in Port Kar.

They were, for those sweet moments, home.

When it was over, Gendo held himself up, both hands planted flat on his desk. His shirt had left at some point, he did not recall when. His glasses were gone too. His chest heaved as he drew deep breaths.

There was a time when he could have done that for hours. When he would have left her chained in place, called for another girl to bring him a cup of paga, then been back about it.

Now his throat burned for air and he felt like he could sleep then and there. He was not the man he once was. Looking at his wife though, chest rising in deep breaths beneath him, she was still just the same. The same tight and powerful body, the same eyes, at once soft and comforting but an instant later sharp and hungry.

Yui shivered as the last wave of pleasure withdrew, like foam along the shore pulled back into the sea. That was the man she loved, that had been the man who had owned her. As the world came back into focus, so did too the past tense of her description. The man he once had been.

His skin had become more pale and his muscles smaller. He had once had this dark and swarthy quality, with smoldering eyes that made her feel warm within her belly. Now he looked tired, as if the strength to master her, once the most trivial of efforts, drained him horribly. She wanted more from him. She wanted him again, for him to take his pleasure from her screaming body once, twice, three times more. She wanted his seed to quicken, to bear another child for him. They had talked of another, they both wanted a little girl too. She saw it as an ultimate act of service.

But she would not have him again today. He was tired, worn. In that moment she pinpointed what had changed in how she felt about her husband.

She was disappointed.

He was no longer Gendo of Port Kar. Though he may regain himself and for a moment be her master, he was her pirate king no longer. He was Gendo Ikari, GEHIRN vice department head, of Earth.

"Yui, what is wrong?"

Yui realized she must have let her face show her thoughts and quickly smiled. "Nothing, nothing, my mind wondered is all."

"Are you sure? Are you okay?"

Yes, her man of Gor was gone and the man of earth was now going soft inside her. She was not okay but her master could have seen that at a glance where the man between her legs might need a neon sign. He expected her to say something as he pulled up his pants, but a piercing scream from down the hall saved her from concocting a believable lie.

"Oh… Shinji." Gendo said, quickly stepping back from her and closing his trousers. Yui slid from his desk without a word, near silent steps taking her to her son's room.

Oh he most certainly had his father's features. He would have that build, that hard jawline, those smoldering eyes. Though his were blue and looked to be staying that way. Yui sighed as she lifted him to her breast, pulling the silk aside with her finger and letting it rest on his cheek once he had latched. If he grew up here he would end up just like him, without the master of his domain between the helpless babe and the disappointing man.

If he grew up here.

Yui had thought she would be glad to be "home" on Earth. Her happiness had lasted perhaps a year. This was not home. It was soft, boring. Boring, dull people going about their boring dull lives. Even the insane old men she pretended to work for just wanted infinitely boring infinite order with themselves as gods.

She looked down at her son.

He would not be among them she decided. Gendo could bluster all he wanted. Her son would know what it was to be a man, a master, a warrior.

She kissed him on the forehead. "Ja oijih Vana'she rastar."

There were plans to be made, missives to be sent. Those she needed to speak to knew her as kajira, she did not know if they would even acknowledge her without her master. They could even report to him what she was doing.

Those were concerns for another time. For now she pulled little Shinji closer to her chest and began to softly hum a lullaby from a million miles away.

* * *

"YOU KNEW!"

Gendo Ikari screamed and slammed his fist up against the transparent wall that separated the holding cage from the control room. He was alone. He had ordered everyone else out after… after the experiment took an unexpected turn.

Growling through clenched teeth he drove his first into the thick polycarbonate again, so hard broken skin left a bloody print where his knuckles landed. His right hand was against the wall while his left held the crumpled paper.

She left a note, just where she knew he would find it if something went wrong but where he would be too busy to notice before the contact experiment started. Folded just so and sealed with red wax stamped with a k. Her handwriting was made of perfect quill strokes in the very language he had forbidden her to use and teach their son. Because everything with her had to be so damned poetic, just the perfect symbol for every situation.

… _We will need a warrior. You cannot raise him here, nobody can. Such men cannot grow here as it is. Perhaps when this is all over they may again, but this world is wrong and we have been complacent in making it so._

 _I have made arrangements that, if everything has worked as it should, should even now be being carried out. If you want as I do, you will caution Kyoko to do the same. The children are not safe from THEM here and you know who their true allies, their true masters, are._

 _I do not do this to be cruel. I know you, as you once were, so powerful and strong, are able to shoulder this burden. My worst mistake was to bring you here and rob you of all that made you so glorious. But had I not, we would not be as we are, in a position to change everything._

 _I love you Gendo of Port Kar. I know in this moment that must be hard to believe, but I swear on our homestone it is true. I swear by the cruel and eternal sea it is true. I swear by the sardar and my collar and brand and every god and spirit on Earth and Gor I love you._

 _This is for the best. That we suffer so more than have ever lived may be born._

* * *

 _And many years passed..._ **Meetings**

Misato Katsuragi stood alongside her friend and colleague Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, flipping through pages stapled to a black folder branded NERV and CLASSIFIED. They were in the foyer of one of the many industrial freight elevator shafts that fed the Geofront. Well okay, if one wanted to be pedantic, it was a funicular since it was on a slanted shafter instead of vertical, but nobody actually used that word anyway.

"So…" she began, and proceeded to not really go anywhere.

"Yes?" The doctor replied.

"He is from another planet."

"Technically he is from Earth, he was born here."

"Uuhuh…" Yes, he was from Earth. The son of Commander Gendo Ikari and Yui Ikari, former evangelion project head. If the file was to be believed though, after his mother perished during an experiment, he was taken to another planet. Another planet, hidden within the solar system, opposite of earth in the same orbit. And that wasn't where it got weird, oh no. This planet was ruled by a race eons more advanced than humanity.

And they kept the humans living there at a pre industrial level, with no guns or internal combustion related technology.

And some jackass had been writing books about it that got published here as shitty pre-impact pulp novels.

"So what is going to happen, flying saucer just comes out of the sky, drops the pilot and leaves?"

"If all goes according to plan, yes."

"Riiiiiight." Misato snapped the folder shut with a thump. It was at least a hundred pages, she would get to it later.

"You don't sound convinced."

"Oh what's not to believe..." Misato said, holding her hands up with a shrug. "Aliens, secret planets, little kid raised since he could walk to be a warrior, oh of course it all makes sense! It was the illuminati that kept it all secret, right? Or was it the lizard people? Where did the mole people become involved again?"

Ritsuko grinned as the whole room began to rumble with the elevators approach. "Nay nay so you say oh ye of little faith. Aren't we working for a secret organization putting children in giant robots? Doesn't that sound like a cliche anime?"

The rumble of the elevator filled the room as the platform came into view along the slanted shaft. As it came into the light, Misato could see it was filled edge to edge with armed men in camouflage fatigues, painted faces above rifles strapped across their chests.

Ritsuko had her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. She leaned over to bump Misato shoulder to shoulder.

"So why not a bad pulp novel?" She said, but Misato heard just whisps of noise above the din of the elevator.

"What?!" She yelled, her hands about her head, the folder over one ear.

The platform stopped with a BANG and suddenly there was only silence in the cavernous shaft. Commander Ikari stood within the mass of soldiers, one hand pushing his glasses up his nose and the other stuffed in the pocket of his open jacket.

"Captain, are you ready?"

Misato stuffed the folder under her arm and saluted, clicking her heels together.

"Sir, yes sir!"

The commander only nodded and turned, the soldiers keeping the way open for her to join him. Mistato went to give the folder back to Dr. Akagi, but the blond pushed it away.

"Keep it, you are going to be working with the guy, read up."

"Where are you going?"

"Going to see what I can do with Zero. We just got it out of bakelite this afternoon after the last fiasco. With the third arriving, we aren't going to try the first in One again, so the commander wants Zero ready as a possible back up unit. The vice commander wants my report by 1700 tomorrow."

With that, they turned away and parted. Misato joined the commander, soldiers closing ranks around them while Dr. Akagi went back down the hall she had come.

Even after being raised in one of the furthest elevator shafts, it was still another hour of trucks negotiating winding back roads in the hills. The trucks were closed like armored vehicles and she and Gendo rode alone, the seats along each side of the vehicle empty but them sitting across from each other near the front. The commander just crossed his arms over his chest and shut his eyes, so in the dim light she read through the folder Ritsuko had given her.

The front page had been a summary, handwritten by her friend who remembered her awful study habits. Going into full detail in the dossier proper did not make it any more believable.

A hidden planet, called Gor, shared Earth's orbit around the sun. It was kept there by artificial means, and always directly opposite to keep it out of sight. The ruling species, the Sardar, occupied only a small mountainous region on the largest continent. The rest was given over to a host of many species, some sapient, that these aliens had collected for reasons unknown. Humanity was just one of at least three intelligent races living under the Sardar's watch.

The humans of Gor had been picked out and brought from many different eras and cultures and analogs could be found from the Romans, arabian tribesmen, the ancient Norse, aboriginal peoples of the americas, even warring states era Japan and more. There was something of a cultural stasis, these people reflecting ways of life which had disappeared on Earth, maintained by rules the Sardar applied to every being on Gor.

The rules were simple and it was hypothesized meant to keep intelligent species from destroying themselves, either through warfare or overgrowing limited resources.

Among them was that no explosives or firearms are permitted. It was noted that combustion engines were forbidden as well, possibly under the same rule.

While the full rules were not known, the document went on to say, generally chemical power was no more advanced than oil lamps, and windmills grinding grain was still seen as a new invention in some areas and was only recently gaining acceptance. There are known to be solar powered lamps, but there were not popular and the mechanism behind their construction and operation was unknown. Transport and many kinds of manufacturing were comparable to classical mediterranean methods.

There was a footnote here and Misato followed it down to the bottom of the page, where the author helpfully explained 'for the uneducated' that meant ancient Greek and Roman civilization. She felt insulted for a moment, but decided the writer at least knew his audience.

The author, Misato was not sure who wrote the briefing exactly, was quick to point out that by no means should the humans of Gor be considered backward. Thier material and medical science was quite ahead of Earth. The 'civilized' people of Gor are known to construct their cities of massive stone towers, built without mortar and connected by high bridges.

While the extent had not been discovered, it was known that a medical treatment, known as the stabilization serum, prolonged human life. It was said, this was not confirmed though, that it had been invented five hundred years before the present time, and there were some people still alive from that time, unchanged since undergoing the treatment. Few diseases still menaced the people of Gor.

This was all an introductory chapter to the longer document. Misato tried to read more but the writer had a very annoying style, frequently repeating himself and going on long winded digressions. She spent the rest of the ride doing as the commander was and catching a few minutes of fitful sleep before the trucks came to a halt.

Another hour following negotiating the thick woods in the dark on foot, the trees too thick for the trucks to continue. Finally they had reached a clearing, nearly a hundred meters wide, and she noted, a strangely perfect circle. The commander had led the way, without a map, compass, or even a flashlight. LIke it was from memory, like he knew the place by heart.

Misato checked her watch, pressing the button on the side to make the digital face light up. It was 23:58.

"Sir." Misato said. She stood behind and to the left of the commander, who himself was some ways in from the perimeter, about halfway to the center of the clearing. The commander was looking up at the night sky. With no real settlements in the vicinity of the city, once one left Tokyo-3, the night sky was clear and full of stars.

"Yes captain?"

"When is the rendezvous supposed to take place?"

"At the twentieth hour, midnight."

"Um, Sir, that would be the twenty fourth hour. Twenty-hundred is 8 PM."

"Not for them."

"Uh, yeah... " The silence was kind of awkward. The commander might as well have said black was white. She still wasn't going to try and correct him. Instead she looked up at the sky with him.

"So anything else I should know?"

"Did you not read the file?"

"I… Some of it"

The commander let out a very disapproving sounding 'hmph'.

"Captain, your new subordinate will not be like the males you know. In some ways he will be far more mature, but in others he will be like a child taking first steps. Do not be too concerned about his fitness for combat, that has been seen to. In all other things, we shall see. Do not underestimate him, but at the same time, do not assume he sees a situation in the same way you might."

Well that wasn't cryptic at all. "Yes Sir."

One star began to twinkle a little brighter than the others. Then it began to grow. One light became many, and the circle of lights that formed drowned out the form of the craft until it was right above them, blotting out the rest of the sky. There was only light. No noise, no wind, not a single leaf disturbed on the clearing floor. The center and lowest point of the craft was no more than a meter off the ground, but the edge and its ring of lights was still high above their heads.

It was a flying saucer. Just floating there and bathing the forest in brilliant white blue light that felt brighter than the sun.

There was nothing for a time, until a seam of light formed and outlined a rectangle against the smooth metal skin. It slowly began to drop, revealing a ramp. The commander spoke again.

"Captain."

"Yes Sir?"

"Do not speak out of turn, there are things I am unsure of in this encounter."

"With all due respect Sir…"

"Captain. Silence."

The commander had not looked at her for the entire exchange. He had not moved at all until he raised a hand to punctuate his command.

The ramp stopped, not touching the ground but just above it, Misato noticed. There was grass and leaves there and not a single blade was bent. The light from within was just bright enough that as two figures cut into the light, she could only see their shadows as they descended the ramp. One was a good deal taller than the other.

"Hail Gendo! It has been too long my friend!"

Misato had never seen Gendo do what he did next. He normally showed nothing of his internal feelings at all, but the slump of his shoulders and the pained groan said volumes. His response was curt and full of tension.

"Mr. Cabot. You were not expected."

They were stepping off the ramp now and Misato could finally see them as the ramp closed behind them. Two men, well a man and a boy.

The elder looked around two meters tall. He had european features and his shoulder length hair was an orange blond, like red bleached by the sun. It stood out against his deeply tanned skin. He wore robes, layered over one another like a kimono, cut at his knees and bound at his waist with a broad leather belt. There was a sword at his hip, dark leather and worn steel was all that Misato could see of it. It was a western sword with a wide crossguard and a round pommel. Oiled leather boots covered from his feet to his knees. She could not tell how old he was, but he was definitely too old to be the polite.

The smaller one walked behind him. In contrast to the confidence this Cabot character exuded, the other looked like a weary animal. He walked with one foot always turned, so that no matter how he stepped he was in a stable fighting stance. His shoulders were forward and his head up, he looked like a cat with his hackles up, ready for a fight or to run. His breathing was shallow and shaking.

This one was the pilot, Misato thought. Deep blue eyes were framed by dark bangs that fell to his cheeks. Most of his hair was pulled back and bound at the base of his skull. Those eyes were darting back and forth between her and the commander. He had a sword too, hanging from a belt just like his companion's. It was on his left, and his right hand was across his belly, fingers flexing like a spider negotiating its web above the pommel.

He looked… scared.

The pair was right in front of them now. Gendo did not bow, extending his hand to shake instead. Of course, the great Gendo Ikari, Commander of UN NERV forces, bowed to no one. Mr. Cabot took the offered hand, but it was strange. He grabbed Gendo by the wrist, not the usual way. The commander seemed fine, and returned the gesture. After one pump though, the visitor suddenly pulled the commander forward and wrapped a thick arm around him.

Misato raised a closed hand to her mouth to stifle ny reaction that could get her in trouble. The commander was very much displeased and she could see his jaw move as he ground his teeth. His entire body had gone tight and she imagined it was all he could do to not order the men surrounding men to shoot this stranger. Commander Ikari, bear hugged and not doing a thing about it.

"My friend, it is good to see you again. I am so sorry I could not express my sympathies when I heard what happened to…"

It was then that the commander shoved the man away with a strength Misato had not thought the commander had. He nearly stumbled over backwards before he regained his footing. The boy's hand gripped his sword, but the elder raised a hand and looked at him and that was all it took to put the young man at ease.

"Gendo…"

"Never speak her name, Tarl Cabot. Do what you have come to do and leave." The commander's voice was like cold stone again. Like always. Emotionless and full of contempt for a world of lesser beings who lacked his single minded determination.

Tarl Cabot, that is what Gendo had called him, stood up straight. He looked almost hurt at the commanders brusqueness. Gendo had been like that as long as Misato had known him, it was what everyone expected. Perhaps this strange man had known him when he was different.

"Of course. Ubar." Tarl said, the last word in a sneer. He placed hand on his young companion's shoulders and gave him a gentle shove forward. "Well, introduce yourself to your father and his lady."

"Um, I'm not…" Misato said, almost on reflex. 'His lady' sounded like she was there as the commander's arm candy. Gendo's gaze turned to her and while his face was emotionless as ever, the way light flared off his glasses when it shouldn't have told her he noticed the disobedience. At this point though, cowing to it would just reinforce what she was trying to dispel. She was the senior military leader for the branch, not a trophy.

Misato brought her heels together and saluted.

"Captain Misato Katsuragi, Head of Military Operations for NERV Japan, Tokyo-3."

Tarl's eyebrows raised and he nodded before crossing his chest with his right hand in a fist over his heart.

"Tarl Cabot, of Bristol, thought lately of Ko-Ro-Ba. A pleasure."

"Likewise." Misato returned and dropped the salute.

The younger man huffed and all three adults look at him.

"Nerai petripa bena na diokis a raraia."

Tarl's response was clearly displeased by the look on his face and his tone. "Yes, women do command warriors here. Speak english or practice your japanese. It is rude to speak in another language in front of those who do not understand and I raised you better than that. And besides, it is the coward's way to insult someone, a woman no less, when she cannot hear. It is unbecoming of a warrior."

Tarl put a hand on the boy's shoulder and gave him a push forward. "Now introduce yourself, come on."

The dark haired boy shrugged the hand off then straightened up and crossed his fist over his heart as Tarl had.

"Tal, I am of Shinji of Ko-Ro-Ba, warrior."

Tarl cleared his throat. Shinji glared at him then continued.

"That is to say, cadet of the 5th rank. I am to report to the senior warrior caste official in this city and apply to formally be granted caste status. If he approves of my training and experience, then with his consent I will be a warrior in full."

"Well then, that would be me." Misato held out her hand. "Welcome to Ear-..."

It was at that moment that the rather bright blue light of the saucer was utterly was washed out by the blindingly pink that was, briefly, a new sun on the horizon.

Then the alarms began. From Misato and the commander's pocket. From the every soldier, and in the shrieking sirens from the city many miles away.

It seemed so petty now, the obvious dislike Gendo had this man who had returned his son. The subtle insult of the boy not even claiming his family name. Even the disregard for her both Ikaris showed.

Doom was upon them. The terror only she had seen and lived had returned.

When the light had faded, everyone had turned to the East, from where it had come. A fire had started, a conflagration that spread until it stretched across the horizon, the red and yellow glow lighting up the night. It was on the east side of the clearing where she stood with these three men: The father, the son, and the stranger.

She stepped towards the fires, the turned to them, the burning night behind her.

Shinji was wary of this place. It was strange. This father he did not remember, and this woman who called herself the leader of warriors for the city. The men in the darkness he wasn't supposed to see. And now the power to set the land ablaze with seemingly only bright light.

Was this Earth in all its wonder? Why could they not defend themselves? Why did they require a man who had so recently been only a boy to protect them? And how was he to fight something which could do that?

"Shinji."

She said his name. She had seemed… unserious before. The type to make light of an event to relieve the tension. Now the fire behind her was nothing compared to the hot, boiling rage in her eyes.

"I am your commanding officer. When I give you an order, you will obey."

Shinji felt a tingling excitement come over him. There was a drama here, like in the epics and the sagas. This was the start of something. What he did not know, but he knew that it was not something he could run from or deny.

"Aye."

"I have your first order." She said. She took a half step back so she was in profile to him now, looking at him over her left shoulder. Her right hand was raised, pointing at the fires behind her.

"Kill it. Annihilate it. Destroy it. Do that and I will call you whatever you want."

He stood proud, left hand clenched around the scabbard of his sword, his right arm across his body as he worked his fingers over the grip. "I am your sword."

* * *

"What do you mean you don't have a sword for him?!" Tarl fired the latest volley in the continuing battle of the passionate red head and the taciturn commander, while Misato groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. It was going to be a long night.

"There were production delays."

The spacecraft had turned off its lights and taken on a mirror finish after the first signs of the angel attack. It meant to wait out the chaos. With their own lights on, the hour it had taken to enter the woods was a twenty minute walk out. Misato had seen the commander trying to walk closer to the boy, Shinji, but the young man always looked at his father with eyes like a cat on edge, and moved to put Tarl between them.

"Well what do you have then?"

"We have a knife."

It had still been nearly an hour back to the nearest elevator. The commandos had been left and it was now the four of them, Herself, the commander, and the new arrivals, hurrying through the sterile white halls of the geofront. The whole way, frenzied radio messages were exchanged, half of which neither side could understand a word of. Once underground it was hopeless, the walls were too thick. Within the geofront, only land lines were viable.

Under the flourescent lights, Misato had a better look at the new pilot. The belt he wore held a red tunic, it looked like wool, to his body and he wore leather sandals that wrapped around his calves. Between the hem of the tunic falling near his knees, the short sleeves going almost to his elbows, and the wide head hole exposing his collarbones and the top of his chest, the effect was to make the tunic look far too big on an overall… slight, boy. In the darkness he had looked like maybe he was just wearing a baggy jacket, but in the light he was not an impressive sight. There was no baby fat on his face, he did not look like a small child, in fact he looked mature for sixteen years old… He just lacked a certain gravitas she had expected of someone who had gone off to train as a fighter for so long.

Unable to reliably reach the commander, the army had thrown everything they had at it activated the perimeter defenses. All it did was prove what Misato had always assumed. They were utterly worthless against what was coming. When they had stopped at an emergency phone for an update, they found out an N2 mine had only made the angel pause. It was regenerating even now under the cover of its AT field.

And the entire time, Gendo Ikari and this Tarl Cabot had been bickering.

"A knife! You send the boy away for 14 years and all you have ready when he returns is a knife!"

Gendo stopped and shoved the much larger man against the corridor wall, his hands balled up in the lapels of his robes.

"I did not send him away! You stole him!"

"How is it theft when his mother asked, all but begged, that I foster him?"

"She had no right!"

"She didn't want him to end up like you!"

Gendo stepped back from Tarl.

"Don't paw me with confused reason Gendo _of Earth_. You…" Tarl began to snarl, hand reaching for his sword.

"With all due respect _girls_..." All three men turned to Misato as she barked her interruption, hands on her hips. This little pissing contest was slowing them down and there was an apocalypse to be prevented. There was no time for this.

"You are both very pretty but right now we have to concentrate on saving the world, so if you are both done, get your stockings straight and let's GET MOVING!"

Gendo Ikari stared at the captain. Tarl Cabot stared at the captain, his jaw moving up and down but making no sound. Shinji was slack jawed and looking from the two men to the captain and back.

Gendo Ikari had cultivated his organization to live in fear of him and one of his senior officers had just spoken to him in a way he had never even thought to plan for.

Shinji Ikari had never heard a woman speak that way to men before. He had heard women angry before to be sure, to speak their mind certainly, but never to question the manhood of not just a social better, but from everything he could tell her direct supervisor. If Tarl was to be believed he was Ubar, he ruled the entire city!

Tarl Cabot, for his part, was grateful he had chosen to forgo the traditional tunic like his ward wore. The breeches and layered robes provided ample material to hide his more physical reaction. The force of will of this young woman was… thrilling.

"MAKE WAY!"

All four of them pushed up against the walls as the gurney came rushing down the hall. Misato mused for a moment it must be a sort of universal thing. If someone is yelling that loudly for all present to move, there is probably a good reason for it.

Ritsuko was among the crowd of lab coats pushing the gurney. On the blood soaked bedding was the pale and blue haired first child. Most of the plugsuit had been torn off and replaced with dressings that were even now soaking through.

Shinji watched as the badly injured girl was wheeled towards them. He saw the one called Gendo stop one of the physicians, a woman with blond hair, and ask what had happened.

"We couldn't reach you." She told him. "Zero was too badly damaged from the last test, our only choice was to put Rei in One."

Gendo was angry and making it known to the blonde woman. The bed upon wheels had stopped though, and he stared down at the occupant. She was quite unlike any girl he had ever seen. Not in her injuries or her pale skin, and the pale color of her hair reminded him of cheap sapphires, the pale kind sold for _bina_. He could only see one half of her face, but she was clearly beautiful. What caught his attention though, was her eyes. Well, at this point he could only see one, but it was a brilliant deep red. It was unfocused, but for just a moment settled on him. Just as quickly, it lost focus and rolled back as she her eyelid fell.

"He is here now! Get him down to the cages. Captain Katsuragi, to the bridge. Mr. Cabot if you stray I will have you shot on sight. And get her to medical already!"

The rest was something of a blur. New people in brown uniforms had rushed him through more identical hallways. Shinji silently noted there were differences, and every hallway and each door had a number somewhere on it, each one different. It was a system, a way for those who knew it to find their way. A stranger would be lost.

It would have been better to have no identification at all though. It was just a cipher, and no cipher was impenetrable. When his instructors had found out he was literate they had given him new ciphers daily. It was just another skill of warcraft, the sending and receiving of messages without the enemy knowing what you knew.

"I beg your pardon, but may I ask a question?" Shinji said, tapping one of the soldiers on the shoulder as they walked. At least he assumed they were soldiers. Though very different from what he had seen back home, the uniforms were obviously martial.

"What is it?"

"Why are you taking me to a cage? Have I broken some law?"

"Look, cage is just the word we use for the room where the evangelions are kept. It's like a hanger."

"What is hung there?"

"Huh?"

"You said a hanger, what is left to hang there?"

"Look, kid, it is just where we keep the eva, that's all, you'll see."

"Aye, thank you… Ah, another question, if I may?"

"Jeez, what now?"

"What is this evangelion?"

The soldier smacked his own forehead in frustration. "Kid, we'll be there soon, you'll see."

HIs escort stopped at a door quite different from the many many he had passed since arriving in this place. It appeared a great deal thicker for one. It only opened when one man, whose uniform had more stripes on the arm and so Shinji assumed was most senior, pushed a series of tiles and a green light came on the panel.

Through the door was a bridge, wide enough for three abreast, two if men in full panoply Shinji thought. There seemed a vastness beyond the walkway but the room was dark. He could only see the steel path with handrails on each side by small lights embedded in the bridge itself. There was, and this raised the hair on the back of his neck, the overwhelming scent of blood.

"Where am to go from here?" He turned and asked, but the door was closing, his escort silent.

So he walked, his steps echoing, his right hand on his sword. Shinji considered that for how long the echos took to return to him, it must be a very large room indeed. After thirty or so paces he found a small gap, no wider than his little finger. He was considering how this probably meant he had reached the halfway point when there was a series of loud bangs and light poured into the room.

In a moment he could see the walkway was between two great metal walls and there was a door like the one he had left on the other side. The bridge was a pool of orange liquid, not even his height over the surface. With the handrail he somehow assumed it would be higher. The lights did not bother him, Tarl had told him of those, but before he looked to his right, he could see the loomings of something in the depths.

Shinji turned, slowly, white knuckles loosing his sword in its scabbard. It was… big. He had never thought of anything on this scale but tall buildings and city walls before. All he could see was the head and shoulders of the giant and it made him think that the pool must be as deep as the walls of Ko-Ro-Ba were tall to contain such a thing.

Its visage was that of a monster, a huge jaw jutting out and a single horn with a wide frill around its head. Tall black towers rose from its shoulders, though it was mainly purple in color, save for its neck which was a dark orange like poppy flowers.

"Ti shi nasha?..."

"That…" the man called Gendo's voice boomed through the cavernous 'hanger'. "Is the greatest weapon ever crafted by man. It is called Evangelion Unit One."

Shinji understood why they called this place a cage as he stared at the giant. Tarns, vicious beasts that they were, were kept in cages too. They were the most valued of mounts, enormous birds and masters of the sky. It was said the first man was formed when the Priest Kings mixed soil with tarn blood. He felt the same as the first time he had stood before one of the birds, wondering whether it was going to accept him or eat him. With the size of the giant's throat, the evangelion could swallow him whole.

"I imagine you are thinking how similar it is to a Tarn, Shinji." Gendo continued. "How it might accept you as it's master or destroy you just as easily. Unit One was made for you Shinji. Whether it finds you worthy or not is up to you. It has rejected others."

Shinji thought of the girl in the hallway. The one Gendo had been angry at, the physician. She said they had put the girl 'in One'. She must have meant this evangelion. Had the giant done that to the girl when it found her unworthy?

Shinji let his sword drop back fully into the scabbard and allowed his arms to hang relaxed at his side. He remembered his lessons with Tarns. The one's bred for war were the ones with the foulest temperament. You had to show the bird that you were unafraid, as it would see the fearful as prey. Training had gotten better, but the finest war mounts still only accepted a single rider and would devour any other who tried to control them.

The similarities were striking.

"Will you do it?"

Though it echoed through the chamber, the voice was coming from the opposite side of the room as the giant. Whether or not his father, the man called Gendo, who Tarl called Ubar, was there was irrelevant. Tarl had told him of machines the men of earth used to enhance their voices, he could be anywhere. He hoped the rudeness would be forgiven when he spoke without turning. He would never turn his back on a tarn and so he would not to this giant. There was an element of respect to be kept, but only a fool turns on something so dangerous.

"I will."

"Prepare the entry plug."

Dealing with the unexpected was a skill, though difficult to teach in a class. Reflecting back, there wasn't anything really in his education which prepared him for the purple giant with its horned and frilled helmet standing in a steel lake that smelled suspiciously like so much blood. Even less for being immersed oneself and being told to breath the not quite blood.

The queerest part though was after all the voices calling out for his attention faded away, golden letters forming in the liquid in front of his face. They were not latin letters or those strange pictograms the Japanese used that he still could not make heads or tails of, but beautifully formed gorean script. They were not written upon a surface, they simply floated there. Each letter flowed to the next and on to words until a question was formed.

 _What is invisible but more beautiful than diamonds?_

What an odd question to ask in a time like this. He knew the answer of course. A child of five in the warrior caste knew the answer.

"That which is silent but deafens thunder." Shinji intoned from rote memory. The golden letters lost their form and merged together into a single golden thread. It was then he felt a tingle and a snap, like the kind when you shuffle across the carpet and touch metal. It crept along his skull as the thread formed new but fewer words..

 _And what is that?_

"The same as that which depresses no scale, but is weightier than gold."

Shinji tensed, clenching his teeth and pushing his feet against the strangely shaped chair. The tingle, the buzzing, it was so much more intense now, almost to the point of pain. Tiny arcs of blue were traveling between hairs on end. The words lost shape before reforming the same question.

 _And what is that?_

"Honor."

The sensation reached a crescendo and suddenly he did not feel the tingling and the liquid around himself. He felt acceleration! He was surging, upwards, faster than any Tarn could climb and as suddenly as it began it stopped and his stomach was in his throat. He was outside, surrounded by towers of dull grey and glass.

The rising sun was warm across his right side.

It took a moment to realize that he was standing astride a street and the towers that came barely above his head were towers many stories high. Perhaps this is what a god feels like?

"Shinji!"

It was her, the woman who commanded men, the most senior warrior in the city, Misato. Her voice was in his ear as if she stood beside him.

"The angel is straight ahead, do you see it?"

The world around him came into sharper focus. There was something ahead. It was as tall as he was. Sickly green with distended limbs and bony armor over its shoulders. It had no head, just a bird like white face in the middle of its chest, above a crimson jewel that stuck out of its abdomen. It was rather ugly.

"I see it." Odd how his voice was still so small and he was now so big. The thing did not react to his voice, and just stared at him.

"Kill it."

Shinji raised his empty hands. They were purple and there were black and green markings on his arms. Armored knuckles topped his fingers. He looked down at himself, his body was leaner than he remembered and colored much the same. He reached for his hip but did not find his sword.

"I have no sword. The hands are a hard thing to kill with alone."

There was a sound of metal scraping against metal, it sounded like right next to the right of his head. He looked at his right shoulder and a knife, held in a cradle extended from a glossy black tower on his shoulder.

He was purple, lean, and there were black towers on his shoulders. Shinji understood now. By some artifice he had become the giant. It all fitted into place in his mind.

THIS was how he was to fight the monster.

THIS is why they needed a gorean warrior. The giant asked of the warrior's codes to judge a man worthy and those of earth did not know the answer, of course!

"You have a knife." Misato said dryly in his ear. Passion built in her voice when she continued. "Now use it to kill the damn angel!"

He took the knife, gripping it with his first two fingers and laying his thumb across the tang of the blade.

"Aye, my captain!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: An Unfamiliar Ceiling An Unfamiliar World**

Gendo watched over steepled hands, but his thoughts were elsewhere as he watched te evangelion rise on the screens over the bridge.

"And now your wager comes to fruition, will a gorean warrior be what it takes to save us all? And the existence of life on Earth is your stake. You never were one to bet small, Yui."

"Do you think she can hear you?" His Vice Commander and former teacher said from behind his right shoulder.

"I am sure of it."

* * *

Light.

Pain.

Crusted sleep made opening his eyes difficult. His arms were sore and tingling complaints reached from his shoulders to his hands when he raised them to wipe his face.

Opening his eyes fully just made it worse. As his surroundings came into focus he could tell that he was indoors and someone, and at the moment his most intense desire was to find and slowly kill them, had painted the entire room white. This was only increasing the glare of sunlight through a window on his left which had brought all the pain his eyeballs could register and was slowing filling his skull with the same.

Shinji covered his eyes with his hands and slowly opened his fingers. His head still hurt, but at least after a few moments he could see more clearly. A white room with white curtains pulled back to let the light in. A panel on the white ceiling glowed with dimmer and unnatural light. White bedding and a metal bed frame. To his right was a white table with drawers set in it down to the floor. It was on wheels. Upon it was a white carafe and a cup.

He sat up, garnering widespread complaints from his limbs. The last clothes he recalled wearing, the new tunic he purchased the day before Tarl and he began the journey that brought them here, was gone. In its place was a white, he was starting to see a theme here, gown that was closed in the front. If the rush of cool air along his spine as he lifted his trunk from the bed was any indication, it was open in the back.

He pinched the gown between his thumb and forefinger and rolled it between them. It was made of paper.

Shinji swung his legs to the right, off the bed and setting his feet to the cool tile floor. He picked up the carafe, removed the top, looked then sniffed. Clear and with no odor. He set the lid of the bedside table and dipped one finger tip-in before touching it to his lips.

Looked like water, tasted like water, did not smell unlike water. He looked at the door to the room. Lightweight, probably wood. This was not a prison. The door was not made to keep someone in, there were windows, it was clean. Tarl had told him that the color of physicians on Earth was white. Back home they wore green.

So he was in hospital. Or that is what someone wanted him to think so he could drink this poisoned water but if he was unconscious this hypothetical enemy could have done what they liked anyway.

Shinji replaced the lid on the carafe and poured a cup full. Now it was just waiting until someone came to speak with him. Or perhaps hospitals were different here and one was expected to go find the physician oneself. Tarl had never said anything about it.

Whoever had taken the liberty of undressing him had not replaced his hair tie, an annoyance that was making itself known as he settled with his elbows resting on his knees to take the weight off his burning back. And so he winced, with his dark hair hanging about his face as he sipped the tepid water.

His arms hurt too but the pain wasn't so bad spread around. At this point some hot paga and the girl who brought it was what he wanted. He got a knock on the door.

"Knock knock!" Came clarion from the hall. A young woman's voice. Why was she imitating the sound she had just made with her knuckles?

"Um, Tal?"

He could hear lock work clicking as the door handle turned and it swung open. A young woman entered wearing the tan military uniform he had seen before, though unlike the men who had escorted him to the Evangelion cage she wore white stockings instead of trousers. She had short brown hair and dark eyes. She was carrying a stack of items.

"Oh Right, Tal! That's a greeting, correct?"

"Aye."

"I'll remember in the future, thanks." She set her cargo down on the table by the water and his cup then held out her hand. "I'm Lieutenant Maya Ibuki, um, I was actually one of the people talking to you over the comm in the Eva."

Shinji shook her hand by the wrist. That was usually something between men, the gesture was different between male and female, and he had thought the captain being a warrior was the exception. Tarl had warned him repeatedly that Earth conflated the sexes though. So he would remember this, everyone shakes hands on Earth.

"Yes, there were… many voices."

"Yeah, with everyone on the channel I am sure it got confusing." He let go first and she followed. "Did I do that correctly?"

"Er, yes?"

"I'm sorry, I am sure I am going to be asking lots of questions that are going to sound strange. I've been assigned as your cultural liaison to help you integrate. Think of me as a resource, I am going to be giving you a lot of information and I can answer any questions you may have about life on Earth. I am also going to be the one handling getting you enrolled in school, setting up a bank account, basic things. At the same time I really do want to learn about you and where you come from. We will be meeting once a week, more if you like aaaaand I look forward to working with you."

Shinji put it to the fact he had only woken a few moments before. He knew the words, mostly. He understood, in the abstract, what they meant put together in the order she had spoken them. As a whole though, the statement was not forming into a cohesive thought. She had not really even spoken it as a separate clauses, it was all just one big rapidly spoken mass of syllables.

There was a silence for a while. It was difficult to really formulate a response to that. His head tilted to the left.

She was the one to break the tension.

"I'm sorry." She began, one hand hanging at her side, the other scratching at the back of her neck as her eyes avoided him. "I was up late practicing that and I guess I kinda blew it. Truth is I don't know why I was assigned this task but I am glad I am. I was only read in that your world even existed a few days ago and it is amazing to think there is a whole 'nother world out there with its own unique people and cultures."

"It is my job to be here for you, to make living on Earth as smooth a transition as possible for you. At the start that is just going to mean setting you up as a legal person, your identity, getting you started in a normal life. I don't know what comes after that and I am sure you are probably going to get tired of talking about your home or maybe it was boring to you, but I for one would love to hear about whatever you have to say. I hope we can be friends."

Shinji smiled. That was what had confused him so much before. She was speaking words but not meaning it. Then she had spoken earnestly and he had understood.

"That was how we shake hands, yes. When we say tal though…" The words were difficult to find, and Shinji raised his hands in front of his chest, moving his fingers as if he was manipulating a tricky puzzle. This concept was so natural, so native to him it was a challenge to find the words, even in his second best language, to express it.

"It is a greeting, we say it when one approaches another, but it is not on its own a welcoming. If we were to meet under different circumstances when I said tal, I would raise my hand…"

He lifted his right hand to shoulder height, with his palm facing towards himself and the back of his hand facing the lieutenant.

"To show you I hold no weapon."

"Oh… that is a very… um, practical thing. Hand up when unarmed, got it. Well, I brought some things for you." Maya moved closer to the bed and started grabbing things from the stack she brought in. "Now you have been unconscious since yesterday morning. What do you remember?"

"Er, very little. I remember the battle beginning, Captain Katsuragi said kill the angel, I had a knife and then… then… I'm not sure, give me a moment if I may have your favor."

Maya raised a hand and Shinji stopped.

"You know what? Don't worry. We will do a full debrief later, the commander wants to give you a couple of days to settle in before we start piling the whole world on your back. Now, this is just your school uniform, you will receive a stipend to purchase other clothing. We, um, took your measurements while you were asleep."

Shinji noticed Lieutenant Ibuki had color in her cheeks when she talked about taking his measurements. Well at least the women of earth weren't dead.

He looked at the clothing. It was folded up inside clear wrappers that made noise when touched

"Also got some, um, y'know underwear. We ended up having to cut off your, your uuuumm…"

"Loincloth I believe is the word in english, Lieutenant."

"Yes! Uh, right, so shoes, all we had was combat boots so, uh that's what you get. You know how laces work, right?"

"Aye."

"Oh my god, I just realized how patronizing that must have sounded I am sooo sorry."

"It is fine lieutenant, I am sure you meant no offense. I have worn laced shoes before."

"Uuuum, let's see, okay socks, underwear, shoes, shirts pants…" She said, counting off the items with a pointed finger. "oh a belt aaaaaand yeah. Right, okay, I am going to step out now so you can, you know, get dressed."

As the door slammed shut, Shinji thought about what Tarl had told him, that the people of Earth, so often conflicted and confused about their desires, were often mentally ill. These poor neurotic people.

The clothing itself was simple enough. He had seen all the garments before in one form or another though never brought together in this way. The clear wrappings were frustrating until he just drove his fingers through them and pulled until the hole was wide enough to extract the item.

There were two shirts, a close fitting one and a one that was looser and closed with buttons in the front. While he knew that buttons existed, it was only the third time he had ever done them up himself. Again, Tarl had told him that they were widespread on Earth but for some reason just not popular back home.

The snug undergarment was just strange feeling, but the inside of the trousers was a good deal coarser than he wanted exposed to skin, so he put it on. It was white and had a flap stitched into the front, he presumed for relieving himself. Which was odd in itself, why wouldn't he just pull them down?

The stockings were white cotton and came to his calf and the pants were grey wool. The belt, rather flimsy and he wondered how it was ever going to hold a sword up, was leather dyed black with a buckle so slight it may as well have been thick wire. The woolen trousers were grey. They were stiff, new.

The boots were also new, though well made from what he could see. The black leather was thick, smooth and even. A good tanner and a fine cobbler, invaluable allies to have. He would have to ask of them when he needed a new pair of sandals.

The whole fit well on his frame, though the button up outer shirt was a bit loose. He was tightening down the laces of the boots, his right foot up on the bed frame, when there was a knock on the door.

"Shinji? It's Maya, are you dressed?"

"Aye, Lieutenant."

"Glad we got your sizes right. You can call me Maya by the way, if you like I mean." The young officer said as she re-entered, leaving the door open. "Actually that brings up a good question. How do your people handle calling someone by name? Is it proper to use someone's title and a last name, or the first name, or just on or the other?"

"A free man or woman should address their superior's by their given rank and title. Family names, last names that is, are uncommon where I am from at least. If I had cause to, I used Tarl's and called myself Shinji Cabot."

"Not Ikari?"

"What is Ikari?"

"It's your name. You didn't know?"

Shinji just shrugged. "No. I suppose it is a fine name to have, but I did not suffer for lacking it."

"Well, once Captain Katsuragi gets here we can move on and get your documents sorted. She was actually supposed to be here so we could meet you together but I guess she is running late…" There was a pause as Maya exhaled and dropped her shoulders. "... again."

"Is this common?"

"The captain still has trouble finding her way around the facility from time to time, I am sure she will be here soon. Do you have any questions while we wait?"

"Yes, actually. These new clothes are very nice, my thanks, however I would like to retrieve my effects before anything else. I will admit, I feel under dressed in a new place without my sword."

"Uuuuuh, about that…"

She was doing that thing where she scratched the back of her head and avoided his eyes again. She was nervous.. guilty? Something of that sort. It did not bode well for having his things returned, he knew that much.

"Aye… Maya?" Shinji said, taking a step forward, towards the lieutenant. She actually gasped and took a long step back.

"Y-yes?"

"You were saying something about my possessions. Where are they?"

"Well um, we…" She stammered. Maya jumped when the young man with the long hair and the far too intense gaze jerked suddenly to look around her. He had heard a familiar sound. Heeled boots tapping on the hard tile floor. Dark hair and a flash of crimson confirmed it was the captain.

"I am so sorry, got…" Misato began, frustrated and tense.

"Captain Katsuragi can answer your question better!" Maya said, quickly stepping aside and putting Misato in the line of fire.

"I can what now? Oh, hello Shinji. Your uniform looks nice."

"Where are my things?"

"Excuse me?"

"Maya…" He said, waving towards the short haired woman. "Was just going to tell me where my things were, but then said you could answer the question better."

"Oh, well your clothes and stuff are in storage for safekeeping."

"Very well, there are just a few things I wish to retrieve."

"That can probably be arranged. We are going to be busy today but I am sure we can grab a few things if you need them."

"Jula, Jashi."

"Um, what?"

"A thousand pardons, I meant to say glorious, thank you."

"Well, let's be about it then. Follow me!"

The captain waved him out the door and he fell in behind her beside the lieutenant, Maya as she preferred. He wondered why they were following the woman who had trouble finding her way around but put it up to a rank and its privileges.

They had stopped for the third time for the captain to consult a map, he kept to himself his thoughts on how ridiculous having a map was when it was already written on the walls. Maya stepped a little closer to him and spoke softly.

"Your language is very beautiful. I heard some more when you were speaking it during the attack."

"My thanks."

"I don't mean to probe but you haven't asked about your teacher and…"

"Tarl has business of his own to attend to. I knew he was to leave shortly after we arrived, to return home. When you said how long I had slept I assumed he had left."

"Oh… Sad that you didn't get to say goodbye though."

"All that had to be said between us was. I will miss him but I will not regret unsaid parting words. It is a temporary separation if he does his duty and I do mine."

"That is a very nice way to think of it."

The first item was a haircut. Shinji objected, he liked his hair just the way it was. The women countered that his hairstyle would not fit in. And so an argument began.

"Because it doesn't even fit with the boy's dress code at your school."

"School? I completed my studies, I thought I was here to fight for you. Why did you give me a uniform if I am not going to be a soldier?"

"There are a lot of reasons okay? And it is a school uniform... Look, it is a battle strategy. You have like lists of rules and stuff, like an art of war?"

"Certainly."

"Then where is the best place to hide something? In plain sight. So you are going to look like all the other 16 year olds."

"Yes, Ma'am."

That had made sense and so he submitted to the barber's shears. The noise they made was quite off putting though, it made his jaw rattle.

The lieutenant, Maya as she preferred, took great care in explaining what a camera was and how there would be a bright flash but he did not need to be scared. Shinji let her go on for some time before speaking.

"I am curious. Tarl said the newer devices of this kind compiled the image as pure information instead of burning it onto a medium with chemicals, which sort is this?"

"You… You knew what this was the whole time?"

"Tarl told me much of earth."

"Then why did you let me… I must have sounded like I thought you were stupid!"

Shinji shrugged his shoulders and grinned at her. "You seemed to be enjoying yourself."

The captain had not been in the room and for the moment Shinji was pleased to find Maya as she had been in the moments after they met. Honest and free of pretense. And with a little fire in her this time.

"Ooooh, you just stand there and let me take the picture!"

Identity cards, documents among documents, a new and false history was created for him. It bore grains of truth. He was to be Shinji Ikari, estranged son of Commander Gendo Ikari. He had been living with a private teacher for many years. No mention of military training. It was intentional, he was told.

"Any sign you are the pilot of the Evangelion could make you a target. This is in your best interest, it is for your own good." The captain told him.

Shinji grumbled under his breath. Who were these Earthlings to decide his best interests without his input.

"What was that?" She asked.

"Yes, Ma'am."

So it went on. Walking from one identical office to the next. Put your mark to this, take this, read this, hold this, put this on. It was enough to make him light headed… Hold on that was only supposed to be a figurative statement.

"Er, Captain…"

"What is it Shin- Oh my god!"

And then things were dark.

When there was light again, his head hurt.

"Doctor Akagi!"

"Hey Rits, he's waking up." The captain said before leaning over him. "Hey there Shinji, you okay?"

"I felt dizzy, light headed.."

"Tired?" He recognized the voice. The blond in the white coat, the physician. Maya had said Doctor Akagi, that must be her name.

A pale hand pushed the captain out of his view and this doctor was looking down at him. Her very dark eyebrows were striking against her blond hair. He had barely noticed the cosmetics on the faces of the other women, but that only made this doctor's bright red lips and lined eyes stand out more.

"Yes, I felt tired."

"When was the last time you ate?" She asked, fingers feeling along his wrist. He did not attempt to stop her, he had been examined before.

"Before Tarl and I boarded the craft to come here."

"Did he tell you the gravity was higher here?"

"Yes, I could feel it as soon as we arrived as well."

The doctor nodded and stood up, stepping away from him. Without the crowd right over his head, Shinji took the opportunity to lift himself up on elbows. He was on the floor still, in the same hallway where he had blacked out. His head hurt.

The doctor was already walking away, not even looking at him to speak!

"You are going to feel weak, your muscles are not used to this gravity. Eat and make sure to stay hydrated."

The captain and Maya helped him rise. They took him to a dining hall, never straying from his side, as if he was going to drop again. They put him at a table and Maya asked what he would like to eat.

"I mean, I know you may not know what things are called, but would you like meat, fish, vegetables? Is there anything you are allergic to?"

"I suppose I should have what a soldier might eat. Meat would be well. I suppose I will be building new muscle too. Water would be best to drink but if I may be honest…"

Misato watched him push a hand back through his newly short hair and look up at them with a smile. His teeth were white and straight, and the way he looked at them was quite charming.

"I would love some wine or ale."

And suddenly Maya was doing that nervous thing where she rubbed at her neck again.

"Uuuh, Captain do you want to field this one? Please?"

"Alright. Shinji, could you have those things where you come from?"

What a bizarre question.

"Yes." he answered tentatively, nodding. "Tarl said they existed here, did I not use the right word? Wine is made from a fermented grape you see, and ale from…"

Misato raised her hand with her palm towards him, fingers spread.

"I… I know what they are, trust me. Okay, so it exists we just don't have it here."

"I see, very well. Perhaps later then, is there clean water?"

"Yes we have clean water. Clean water is not a problem here, we have it almost everywhere."

"That is very good."

"Yes. Soooo the other thing about alcohol though… So we have laws. You know what laws are, right?" Misato said, carefully choosing her words. She had seen this before and these conversations could go either way. She just did not know this kid well enough to tell which way he would go.

"Of course captain. I am civilized, I come from a city, I know what laws are. What is wrong, what is this about?"

"Well, one of these laws say you can't drink alcohol until you are a certain age or older."

"I… see. I am not of that age then?"

"Yes, by about 4 years."

"I see." There was a sharp intake of breath through his nose, and a long, slow exhale. "Then water, please."

"Ice?" Maya asked.

"Pardon?"

"Do you want any ice in it?"

"You have ice… to put in your water?"

"Yes!"

"Why...?"

"To keep it cool."

He looked at the both of them, as if they were the mad ones from an alien place. Which to him, Maya supposed, they were.

"Yes, I shall try this water with ice in it, thank you."

Earth foodstuffs, it turned out, was much like those back home. There were little details certainly, but the red meat was red meat, and the fish was fish, the fruit was fruit, and the greenery was greenery. Some of it was a little bland, but Shinji assigned the fault there to him and not the cooks. He knew his life had been privileged and spices for every person in a unit would be an extravagance. At least they had salt. He even made a small adventure and tried a local seasoning, a brown sauce in a little bottle with a red top. The top was tapped with holes to allow the souce to be poured with the container closed.

The flavor was quite agreeable and he felt refreshed after eating and several cups of the cold water. Maya had been charitable to call it cool. He had taken too much into his mouth once and the nerves from his jaw to his crown lit up like he had eaten fresh snow and bit down on a rock at the same time. What had Tarl said their word for it was, brain freeze?

The young lieutenant left them after the meal. The captain said she herself would be taking him to lodgings which had been assigned to him. They were not on site. As they walked away from the dining hall, Shinji wanted to show the captain not only was he civilized, but well educated about Earth.

"Will we be driving in a car to get there?" he asked, and in return was pleased by the somewhat surprised look from the captain.

"Yes we will. Did Tarl tell you about cars too?" What had surprised her had been the way he asked. He had seen and rode in the transport trucks without issue, he obviously knew what an automobile was.

"Yes, and I read of them in books."

"Well my car is very different from the trucks you rode in the other night. Some people are a little scared their first time in a fast car."

"Captain, I have walked this city as if a god and ridden tarns so quick you feel the blood rush from your limbs as they turn. Riding in a fast carriage powered by fire holds no fear for me."

"We'll see. They are actually mostly electric now, I had to convert mine."

"Electric, functioning on a charge like harnessed lightning."

"Exactly."

Twenty minutes later, as he was panting for breath and untangling himself from the seat restraint, lightning seemed a very apt metaphor. It was violent and destructive. And the captain, she was smiling, sometimes even laughing, enjoying herself as he had been thrown back and forth, right and left in his seat.

He had never been raised much for religion, and the Priest Kings were far away, but Shinji touched his fingers to his lips, then pressed his hand to the ground and thanked the sardar and all the spirits of this land and whatever gods may live here that it was over and he had survived with his body still whole.

"Oh stop being a drama queen. I only let the rear end out on the switchbacks to show you some fun."

"The Priest Kings take your fun!"

He stood up next to her and looked upon a short tower. Well short by the standards of Ko-Ro-Ba. Counting the windows it appeared to only be ten levels. The building nor the grounds were in good condition. They proceeded, carefully, inside and found it both unoccupied and the same state of disrepair.

"You know what, you aren't staying here."

"Where am I going to go then?"

He had watched quite interested as she took a small black device from her pocket, opened it at a hinge and, after pressing at tiles on one side, began to speak into it. And it spoke back!

Tarl had told him of telephones, but not something so small it was concealed in a pocket. The power such a thing held was mind boggling. To speak at any distance, instantly and clearly. What wonders these Earthlings had and used so casually. How did it work, he wondered, what gave it power, how did the message pass unseen through the air. He wanted to ask of this, and more.

In his wonder he had quite forgotten to listen to the whole of the conversation though…

"Don't worry, I won't put the moves on him! Bye Rits." She said and snapped the phone shut.

"Okay, you are going to come stay with me. We just need to do some shopping first and then we can head home."

"Does that mean more time in the car?"

"Yes."

"You know, this building is not so bad…"

"Get in the car!"

"Yes, Ma'am."

They visited a market next, at a thankfully more sedate pace. The captain called it a market anyhow, but Shinji was not so sure. It was a single merchant, inside and seated in front of his wares, with many different kinds of wares. Usually just one or two varieties of each which was just strange in and of itself, but it was all wrapped up in paper or more of those clear pouches like his clothes had been. How were you supposed to pick the best ones?

He was silent as he followed the captain through the strange little market. It was always better to observe a new place and their ways before acting too boldly. It was a real lesson from Tarl but he told himself that is what he had been doing with a divided heart.

In honesty, he was still wary of this place. The market had reminded him of his own failures to properly prepare. There were labels and placards everywhere, on the food and the shelves. Apart from the numbers he assumed to be a price, he could not read a word of it nor the labels on the items. He could only speak the Japanese language with some difficulty and he was glad nobody had yet called on him to. He could not read a symbol of it and when Misato spoke it with the merchant he could barely keep up.

Tarl had said English was like common Gorean on Earth, most everyone of any education spoke it besides the language of their people if they had one.

What if he was wrong?

On Gor to be able to read is not a universal skill so illustrations and common symbols are used. All of the signs he had seen here had been in Japanese symbols and only a few had english as well.

But Shinji had questions, and revealing a weakness to his new superior would not be prudent.

"Captain, would it be acceptable if I asked you questions I may have of Earth? Maya said it was among her duties to answer them for me however if we are too live in close proximity, I thought, for convenience…"

"Of course it's alright. Not sure if I can help you with everything but I'll try."

"My thanks."

"So what's up?"

"First, what is this material called?" Shinji held up the white bags he had been tasked with carrying. The material was everywhere but he had not seen it before coming here.

"Plastic."

"Plastic, thank you." Shinji put the things in a storage compartment in her car, in front of where they both sat. He entered and fastened the restraint belt and they were off again.

"When you spoke with the merchant, in the market…" Shinji paused, realizing his mistake.

"Yes?"

He had already begun the question without thinking, how stupid. There was no way to ask about her conversation without revealing his poor grasp of the language.

"Oh, didn't Mr. Cabot say something about you needing to practice your japanese?"

"I, uh… aye, that is yes…" Think think think, don't look like a fool…. Got it. She was doing what everyone does before giving their money to a merchant. It was so quiet thought, so short, and that was what he wanted to know more about.

"You did not seem to argue the price too much. Did he give you a fair price because you wear the colors of a warrior?"

"...What?"

"The price of the goods, you only bargained with him for a only a moment and it did not seem he took much convincing."

"Uh-huh… Oh! Ooooooh, I got what you mean. Do you not have stores like that on Gor?"

"Stores like what?."

"What are they like in, what did you call it… Cordoba?"

"Ko-Ro-Ba…"

It was pleasing how freely they spoke together, riding in this blue car among the green hills. It seemed one did not argue prices with merchants here, at least not in most cases. There were open air markets like the ones back home in other places, but not here.

Shinji shared stories of the markets of Ko-Ro-Ba. She was a powerful trading center and one could find food and goods from all over the known world in her markets. Even her name was a very old word for a kind of open air bazaar. To walk among the stalls was to breath many scents and hear every sound. The shops were divided by the sort of good being sold into streets. There was the street of butchers for meat, the street of farmers for grown foods, the street of tailors for clothes, metalworkers for the smiths and the iron mongers and the jewelers...

"The street of brands was my favorite, apart from the smell of course. But I am a man who was a boy not too long ago, I am sure you understand."

"Not really. I mean I guess it smells bad if stuff is getting branded, but what's sold there, livestock?"

Shinji snickered. Misato had seen him stare blankly a couple of times today, but now she felt like the situation was reversed. She was missing something.

"Captain, the street of brands is for… uh, what is that word. Our word for them is me'shan. We call the females kajira and the male kajirus. Though one does not see the male for sale in public often, that is usually done elsewhere. The female is displayed for all to see and the other merchants on the street of brands sell those things which go with her."

Misato had a bad feeling about this but asked, against her better judgement:

"Why would a young man be so interested?"

"Well, because most of the girls are naked and the smart ones doing their best to attract a buyer, so they are dancing, or just showing themselves off."

"Shinji… you are talking about human beings, right?"

"Yes, of course."

Bad feeling confirmed. Misato slouched her shoulders and groaned.

"The word for that is slavery."

"Slave! That was the word I could not remember, thank you."

He was way too excited about that, bad feeling was getting worse.

"Shinji, we don't do that here. It is up there with the worst crimes there are. Wars were fought to wipe it out. People died. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions I don't know. Anyone who buys, sells, even transports people being forced to work, it is all the same crime."

"A… I see."

It was a tense silence as she drove on. They were along a mountainside road on the outskirts of the city. Misato spoke first, wringing her finger over the steering wheel.

"Is that going to be a problem, Shinji?"

She glanced at him. He had drawn in on himself, His shoulders were forward and he had one arm up like he was shielding his chest. He had been looking towards her but when her sunglasses turned towards him he looked away, out the window. He said nothing.

"Is it going to be a problem?"

"Ki… No, Ma'am."

"Good. I want to show you something."

Misato pulled over at the crest of a hill. She got out and Shinji followed, stepping over the guide rail and looking out over the city. It was unimpressive to Shinji. The buildings were squat and drab compared to the towers of his own. Sunset was just beginning and the glare only washed out to muted colors.

"This is what you saved Shinji."

Before he could respond, there was a tremor through the earth and klaxons sounded. Where before he had seen only paved concrete, the ground opened up and high towers of steel and glass rose into the air. It was like nothing Shinji had ever seen before, and he struggled to understand what was happening.

The Earthlings built towers as tall or taller than any of the cylinders he had lived in on Gor, and they built them square out of steel and glass on a world whose gravity made everyday life feel like carrying around bags full of rocks. Then they dropped them into the ground only to raise them again, and only in a few seconds both ways. The expense, the physics, the skill and precision needed, everything boggled his mind. He was witnessing the impossible.

"We can drop the largest buildings underground to protect them. When everyone is evacuated this allows us to change the battlefield at a whim. Towers can be raised filled with weapons and equipment. NERV built this whole city as a trap."

"I fought for a ruse then?"

"No. People live here, lots of people. The angels want to kill everyone and everything on Earth. You stopped them. I don't know if you quite understand, but from what I read your people understand saving a city. Everyone here and across the world owes you their lives, all four billion of them."

The last tower ceased moving and there was silence across the valley. Light and shadows danced around the new structures as the glass shined in the evening light. It was beautiful and hard to look at.

Four billion people. The number kept swirling around in Shinji's head. He knew what it meant in an academic sense but he couldn't understand it. It might as well be infinite, like the fish in the seas or sand upon a beach. How could so many people even exist? How could they depend on him? He wasn't even a full warrior yet and everything rested on his shoulders.

The hill suddenly felt much steeper.

"You did good Shinji. You saved my city. Your city now too."

"My city?"

"Yep."

"I am a citizen then?"

"What did you think all that paperwork today was for? You are officially Shinji Ikari of Tokyo-3 now."

Shinji did not turn to look at her, keeping his gaze on the city below. Pieces of paper did not make a citizen. A bond between the man and the city, sacred and secret oaths upon the homestone, service and sacrifice, these things made a citizen. Shinji Ikari could be of Tokyo-3. He was Shinji Cabot of Ko-Ro-Ba.

"And a warrior?"

The captain looked at him then out at the city and the sunset. She set her hand on his far shoulder.

"Is being a soldier that important to you? That is really what you want to do with your life?"

"It is my life."

"You know at your age, we barely allow kids to start military training, and that is only in desperate times. Most times you couldn't start for another year or even two."

He grunted and she looked at him.

"Where I come from, many would say my age is too late to begin if one is to become a proper warrior."

"Harsh place."

"A place for the strong."

The implication did not need to be given voice. The captain lifted her hand and brought it down on his shoulder twice.

"Do me a favor and give us a chance, we might surprise you."

"Is that an order?"

"Naw, just a favor."

"Yes, Ma'am."

A final car ride for the evening brought them to another residential tower, this one in much better condition than the first. The first had been bare concrete but this one was painted a neutral brown. The upper levels were smaller, giving the top half of the building a slanted look, but it appeared such an arrangement gave those compartments more exposure to natural light in the beginning of the day. For now as the sun was beginning to set, red light fell on the rear of the building, which was open to the elements and, Shinji assumed, made up the hallways between compartments. He found his assumption correct after they rode the elevator up, provisions in hand. The hall was not unlike those back home.

In the cities of the North, Ko-Ro-Ba among them, the cylindrical towers of which they are made up follow a uniform style. This method is known and shared by the high caste of builders, even between cities which were normally enemies. It should be noted that knowledge considered vital, such as safely building high towers and certain medical knowledge, was always shared in this way. While one may think it advantageous to keep it a secret, doing so would transform such knowledge into a commodity, and any product which might be concealed in one's mind was impossible to properly secure in the long term. Thus, sharing such things was found to be agreeable. But that is a digression…

In the towers like those Shinji found familiar, there is a distinct absence of something those of Earth take for granted. The gorean builder does not make practice of installing handrails or other barriers on the precipice of high ledges. The difference, one familiar with both worlds might suppose, is cultural and a product of place. Goreans, with their world's noticeably lower gravity, do have less fear of falling however if one were to ask them about the danger they would likely ask why you, if you do not wish to fall, you would put yourself in a position to do so.

Shinji noticed when they had arrived and as they moved through the building, that there was little sign of occupancy. This was clearly a dwelling meant for many families, but there wasn't the noise of it, nor the smell, nor even the petty refuse and signs of coming and going such a number would leave. After the captain showed him how he might unlatch the door by moving his new identification card over a plastic panel nearby, he had a theory as to why.

"Wark!"

"Hey buddy, I'm home! Well come on in Shinji, don't just stand there."

"What... is that?" The gorean asked, quite content to stand outside the door and, he hoped, anything _that_ might consider its territory.

"Oh, how rude of me not to introduce my other roommate. This is Pen Pen!"

She kept a tarn in her dwelling. Granted it was a small one and had strange little wings, but that beak and those talons were not anything he wished to be close to without knowing the temperament of the beast. And were those claws on ends of its wings? Whatever the case, she was either very brave or very reckless to keep such a thing indoors and his esteem for her rose because of it.

"Is it well tempered?" Shinji asked, maintaining his position.

"He's fine, come in. No wait! One thing first."

She came back to the door and took the bags from his hands and set them down on the floor.

"We Japanese begin all things with appearances." She said, hands on his shoulders. "Here, step inside."

"I'm not Japanese, you just told me to stop now you are telling me to step, do I look like a slave to you?"

"Oh just do it." She said and pulled at his shoulders. She did not appear strong, but yet Shinji stumbled forward.

"Now say _tadaima_."

"Tadaima?"

"Perfect. It means…"

"I am home, I know."

"Exactly." She slapped his shoulders and let go of him now. "This is your home. It is as much your space as mine."

He did not speak, but his head tilted on its own volition. What was this woman on about?

"Look, you seem the type to not talk about what's going on behind that big tough warrior outside but you are three hundred million kilometers from home. From everything you've said, where you come from is really different so I know you don't want to admit it, but it is totally okay to be a little scared. I know I would be. So just remember this is your home too. It's gonna be weird for me at first but you should feel like you can be yourself here. Don't feel like you have to lie to me or hide anything because I might get offended."

"Oh…" He replied, quite surprised. This was the invitation one might give a dear friend and not something he had expected at all.

"Think you can do that?"

"A-aye, I mean yes, ma'am."

"Come on, let's eat."

The small tarn was quite happy with fish, though Shinji was not sure about how it had looked at his digits. Dinner itself was something else Tarl had warned him about.

"It's safe to eat."

"Safe is a peculiar word to choose to ascribe to food purchased freely."

"Look if you don't trust the microwave we can look up how it works."

"It is not the machine that bothers me. Tarl told me packaged meals like this were made on Earth in a similar manner to which you make building material and about as nutritious."

"Well, can you cook?"

"Field provisions."

"Then the other choice is going hungry."

"I suddenly find this more appetizing."

"Thought so."

They ate without speaking for a while. The packaged meal was not too bad, if one put aside not knowing exactly what one was eating.

"So…" Misato began, reaching for something to talk about. She normally worked while she ate. "Got anybody waiting back home?"

"Friends. Tarl. My family as it is, is here."

"Girlfriend?"

"A what?"

"You know, dating anyone? Goin' a courtin'?"

"Oh… no."

"Boyfriend?"

"I am no man's catamite."

"Hey, just askin'. Nothing wrong with it."

"No."

"Fine, what about one of those slave girls you said you are so fond of?"

Misato found it curious the way he looked away, down and to his right before answering. "I owned no slaves."

People only looked away like that when they had something to hid. She pressed on. "I think you have a story."

His eyes were back, cold with his lips turned into a frown. "And how do you surmise that, Captain?"

"Call it a woman's intuition."

Shinji set his utensil down and took a breath, letting it out in a sigh. "There was one I was fond of. I had her in the house of another, a rich man. I grew fixated, I wanted her again, I wanted to purchase her."

"What was she like?"

"Hazel eyes, pale for a slave but not sickly looking. Her hair was… dark, but not as dark as yours. Her body was slight but she had fine curves and that beautiful ratio between her chest, her waist and her hips. You know, it is not the size as much as how it all flow together."

"She sounds beautiful."

"She was."

"What was her name?"

"Hm?"

"What was her name?"

"She was a slave."

"And? do they not have names? How do they know which one you are talking to?" Misato sat back in her chair and pointed off towards the window that made up one side of the quarters.

"You, slave! No not you the other one! No, that one!"

Misato had only heard Commander Ikari laugh once. She was not even sure what it was about, but despite his beard and severe bearing, his laugh had been an almost boyish snicker. Shinji was laughing the same way now.

"Hehehe… No, no, thankfully it is not that way." The young man said, still grinning. Misato noticed he had a nice smile. Somewhat surprisingly, all his teeth were there, straight, and pearly white.

"It is just that a slave's name does not carry the same importance. A slave girl especially, her name is whatever a master chooses to call her and that may change at a whim."

"Do you think of her still?"

"Yes."

"So what do you call her in your head?"

"When I had her, she was called Alice."

"Wait… Alice?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, I was just expecting something… I dunno, not Alice."

He shrugged. "English female names are common slave names. It is my understanding that a place called America and Europe are where most girls brought from Earth are from and most speak that language."

"Woah woah woah, how do women from here get there?"

"Taken by slavers."

"How? You people don't have cars, much less space flight."

"And how did I get there, captain?"

"I…" Mistato stopped, frozen standing out of her chair with one hand flat upon the table and the other raised, finger ready to wag in the boy's face. After several uttered false starts, she sat back down.

"So what happened with you and this girl." Misato asked, more than happy to change the subject.

"When I had the opportunity to ask her price, her owner valued her as what was to him a pittance, but a boy like I could not afford. He was not one of his preferred, just another serving girl. He sold her."

"What happened to her after that?"

"I do not know. But I learned one cannot become fixated on such things. There was no connection outside my own mind. She was a slave and the first I ever had. I will have others, but she will be the last I make the mistake of feeling for in that way."

"Damn, that's harsh."

"It is the way of things."

"And you've never like gone out with a woman? Dinner, dancing, whatever you people do for fun?"

Shinji shook his head. He had returned to eating his meal. "Free women are cold and frigid. And they want to… discuss everything."

Misato giggled. "I don't know about that first part but the rest…" She titled her head side to side as if deliberating. "Yeah we are kind of like that. Okay so if the free women are all ice queens and you don't want to feel anything for a slave girl, where is the romance, what is the long term goal?"

Shinji shrugged. "Gorean men, as a whole, prefer slaves to free women for the purpose of pleasure. Then again it is said every woman, even free, has a slave inside her who will submit to the right master. A woman may be free and bound to a companion, but she will still submit to him."

"Uh-huh." Misato grunted incredulously.

"Do not blame me, I am merely quoting a well known aphorism. However the corollary to that for every slave, whether the woman believes herself to be one or not, there is an ideal master to whom she is his ideal slave. His love slave and her love master."

"Riiiiight."

"This situation is held as the most perfect of all relationships."

"And why is that?"

"Because a woman in excellent mastery is the truest woman and a man with the power to master her in such a fashion the truest man."

Misato sat back and crossed her arms beneath her chest. "We are not like that here."

"So Tarl said." His tone was not argumentative but it was certainly flippant. He took another bite and his time to chew it.

"Earlier I asked if this was going to be a problem. I believed you at the time, but it seems like this is so ingrained in your culture I don't see how it won't be a problem."

"I assure you I have no intention of enslaving your women or pillaging your villages. I am here to fight, not to find a companion."

"Uhuh, and what if you, just walking along…" Misato said, her chin resting upon her palm, her elbow on the table. "... Where to fall in love with a woman at first sight. She was your destined love slave, you just knew it. So you go to her and speak to her and she tells you to go take a long walk off a short pier. What would you do?"

"It is a pointless question. Such things do not happen outside over-wrought fiction. Free women should be shown all the respect one can. If they attempt to belittle you or insult you, all the more so because it is their right."

"That is a surprising idea coming from you."

Shinji grinned as he chewed. He swallowed and said:

"Give the gorean a chance Captain, he may yet surprise you."

* * *

In the form of the giant, Shinji charged through the dawn light, the knife turned up with the blade held against his right forearm. His steps felt heavy and too long. As if every footfall was a relief that it had landed true. Within a pace of the monster, Shinji drew the knife across his body and into his left palm and thrust in, hips pushing off the ground and his full weight behind the blow.

Light.

Fire.

Pain.

The hard shock of impact as he his back hit the street pulled him from whatever illusion had made him feel as if he was the giant. He was back in the cylinder filled with not quite blood. He could see the world outside, which at the moment consisted mostly of blue sky.

 _The Angels are terrible foes._

A voice, soft and feminine, but with a certain edge.

 _They are strong. Uncompromising and without mercy. Without weakness._

The beast's hand, three thin claws with a red jewel in the middle was above him. It filled his vision and no matter how he pulled and pressed at the handles and buttons that surrounded him, the giant did not move.

 _Each is totally self sufficient. They have one goal and have no capacity to think beyond reaching it. Their will is so strong it may bend reality to their will._

Shinji screamed when he felt the claws gripping his skull and squeezing, lifting him up into the sky. His neck burned with the strain even as he laid there in the seat within the cylinder.

 _One cannot be weak who meets such beasts. Only men who are strong, who can match them in will, in ferocity, and in terribleness may meet them and hope to triumph._

Suddenly his left arm seized, seemingly of its own volition and rose straight out to his side. It felt as though something of massive strength was trying to wrench it from his body.

And then it broke. He looked at his arm in horror. He felt the bone snap, felt it tear through his skin! But instead it was twitching uselessly in the darkness. Agonizing pins and needles ran through it and the veins bulged but it was whole and visually unharmed.

What manner of hell was this?

 _Is it not strange to love them? They will purge weakness from the earth, whether they succeed or die._

Light, dazzlingly bright, engulfed him before the pain stabbed through his right eye. Shinji had thought he had known pain. He thought it had hurt the time the knife had torn open his chest, when he had fallen from a Tarn above the city walls and broken several bones. This was worse than all of it put together in a single instant.

 _You do not know pain, not real pain. You cannot understand the fear of an entire planet about to be stripped of life._

The pain driving into his skull like a ram was gone. Now it felt as if his entire body was on fire as he flew through the air. Slamming back first into something upright, the coral light crashed over him, crucifying him in fire.

 _You cannot hope to even fight against it, if you are as men are here. If your will is conflicted against itself, bound by the hypocrisy of restraint. You know the words, but what are you truly: a boy scared of his own desires or…_

"I am a man!" Shinji snarled around clenched teeth. "I am a warrior!"

 _Strong words and nothing more. Show me. Rise._

The cylinder was gone, he was the giant again. The world was red like blood and his right side was clouded by darkness.

 _Show me. Show me your ferocity, show me your united will._

He tried to open his mouth but it would not move. It hurt to force until whatever had restrained him broke and he roared at the angel. He charged, his arms trailing behind him, each step precise and purposeful. Every step carrying him one step closer to the monster.

The wall of light, the beast's will, arrested him. Searing pain covered him as he thrust his unbroken right fist into the pulsing wall of willpower. He felt as if he was trying to punch through a mountain strong as it was.

But then, just for half the blink of an eye, it flickered.

 _You are truly a man of Gor. You are strong…_

His left hand had been broken and bloodied. He drew it back and rainbow light enveloped it. Just as suddenly as it had broken, it was whole again.

 _Now rip and tear._

For the first time, the monster reacted beyond attacking. His muscles seethed as he pulled and the field quickly flickered. The beast stepped back in fear. Its will was broken. The golden wall of light shattered like glass.

The angel swiped at him. Shinji caught both of its spindly arms in a single fist and crushed them like twigs. He twisted them, breaking them further and sending blood across the beast, himself, and the towers all around. The thing tried to pull away. Shinji pulled it back as if he was lifting a branch from the ground it was so effortless. To swing his opponent over his shoulder and bring it crashing to the ground was as if he was but stretching before exercise.

This was the power of a god.

Soft hands like flower petals touched his shoulders. He was standing over the monster, but he was also in the cylinder with his hand around the unfamiliar controls. There was hot breath on his ear, whispering, pleading.

 _Your power, my glorious warrior. Ja jula rastar._

The illusion was broken. He was sitting down in the not quite blood filled darkness. He could see projected on the walls images of the monster, the angel, standing beneath the giant. Those words…

No. He shook his head, wishing the thought gone as his long hair, now loose, swirled in the fluid that surrounded him. He had a thing that needed doing, he should not hesitate. But the moment had passed, the mistake had been made. The angel was dissolving and rushing to meet him all at once, enveloping his body, suffocating him, crushing him. There was no air, only putrid flesh invading his mouth, blocking his nose, and squeezing the life from him…

* * *

Shinji gasped for air as his eyes opened. It was dark, but not the total darkness of his dream. He was in the room he had been given in the captain's apartment, laying on a sleeping mat and nude beneath the quilted blanket. He was alive, the angel was dead. He had won. He was victorious. And yet it had been a great while before he could sleep, and now the thing had awoken him. He felt cold, yet as he sat up, sweat dripped down his body.

Jula rastar. Some glorious warrior he was, woken by night terrors after his first victory.

He heard the latch move and the door opened. The captain. There was light behind her and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. As soon as he could see he looked away. She was undressed, wearing only under garments. She was his superior, it would be at least disrespectful to look at her in that way.

"Hey Shinji, you okay?"

"Aye, yes captain."

"Bad dream?"

He nodded. "Memories becoming clearer. The battle was… most intense."

"Yeah it was. But you did good. Once you're ready, we have training for you and more weapons will be delivered soon. Next time the angels won't know what hit them."

"Aye, as you say."

"Sleep well."

"And you captain."

The door closed and darkness surrounded him again. He laid down, leaving the blanket off his upper body. The feeling of cool air across his sweat covered torso was pleasant.

The angel had not died by his hand. Surely he had dominant position and had injured it grievously but he had not struck the killing blow. When it had enveloped him, when it tried to choke the life from his body, that was a final attack of desperation. Something, exactly what he could not recall, had occurred after that. What had happened he did not know, but he knew the intent.

He had not killed the angel. The beast made a final attack by sacrificing its own life in the vain hope of killing the giant but had simply been unable. Shinji thought about this for a while, staring at the night sky through the window that occupied much of one wall of his chamber.

He did not match such a being. He gave it the opening when he let himself become distracted. The beast just lacked the means to take advantage of it. Has it been he and another warrior, he would be dead.

It had used whatever power it could muster against him and caused little damage. What damage it did inflict was healed in an instant, by the whim of the giant itself. There had never been any question of victory. It was not a battle. It was as if a common fowl attacked a tarn. A lower being attacking something so vastly superior that any injury was due to surprise at such a menial thing making itself a threat. Had it been stronger, he would be dead, along with four billion others. It was no victory, and certainly no credit to him.

Four billion people depended on a fraud.


	3. Chapter 3

Tal all!

My apologies for the long wait, my computer had a protracted period of convalescence while I replaced a fan. I also ended up splitting up the original chapter 3 into what you will see below and the upcoming chapter 4.

If it seems the story is starting a little slow… well yes, it sort of is. Things will begin to pick up, I promise.

 **Chapter 3**

"Tal, lieutenant."

It was bright and early… or it was above ground anyway. It was always bright under the harsh lights of underground facilities of NERV. Captain Katsuragi had brought Shinji in for synch testing, she had told him. Whatever that was.

"Shinji, tal! It is great to see you again!" Maya said, her left hand holding files tucked under her arm. Her right was raised, the knuckles facing Shinji and Misato. "Did I do that right?"

"It was excellently done."

"Thank you. Dr. Akagi is indisposed but we wanted to see if you felt up get back in unit one today."

"Another enemy for me to fight already? I will be kept so busy here."

"No no. Actually because we had to rush you right into the fight, we don't really have a baseline for how you interact with the Evangelion. Before we can say whether you improve or your performance suffers under different conditions, we need to establish what 'normal' for you is."

"I believe I understand."

"Great. Your plugsuit should have finished curing overnight."

"...My what?"

Shinji had thought the coarse trousers bothersome. This garment, this plug suit, clung to his body in many novelly uncomfortable ways. Or were they uncomfortable novel? In any case, just entering the evangelion had been a relief. The captain had found it necessary to make certain comments about his appearance which had brought fire into his cheeks. Talking about him like he was up for sale. Totally unprofessional.

Maya had told him what to expect. The giant would not leave its cage today. It would only be activated to establish the link between its mind and his. The activation should proceed as it did before the battle, however it was unknown if the giant would choose to interrogate him on the finer points of the warriors' codes or if it had now accepted him as worthy.

As the static crept along his legs, Shinji was considering something. Captain Katsuragi's comment had been the reverse of common enough situation back home. Men often made idle conversation about a free woman they had no interest real in. If she heard, she would surely return their attention with a loud and vicious tongue lashing. Of course if one spoke of a slave girl that way they would no doubt be pleased. Kajira are vain creatures.

 _Oh they are, the little she-sleens…_

The feeling was like a physical jerk, as if he had been grabbed by the shoulders and flung backwards. It was the same as before. He knew he was still sitting in the entry plug, as he learned it was called, surrounded by the warm not-quite-blood. At the same time, he now stood on a high hill, in the shade of single tree, looking out over a wide valley.

There was movement on the edge of his vision to his left and he turned to face it.

"So vain in their slavery, or should I say our slavery."

"Alice?"

She stood before him, hazel eyes with dark hair cascading down her back. Her collar and bracelets were gold shining in the sunlight and tinkling bells decorated her ankles. She wore only a single red silk wrapped and tucked around her hips, low to expose her belly button and was otherwise bare to the sun. Her chest hung high and forward, her brand was a feminine Kef on her left hip. They were both equally alluring to him.

"You liked her, didn't you? Tell me truly, did you think her your love slave, your destined?" Her voice was not was he remembered. She had spoken so softly to him, so tenderly. This Alice spoke with shrill cruelty.

"Who are you?" Shinji asked.

"Ah ah ah, I asked a question first, you have to answer it before you get to ask me anything." She replied, wagging her finger at him like a parent to a child.

He looked over the girl in front of him. This was a test clearly, he had to avoid the obvious choice.

"Well of course it's a test!" She said, hands on her hips and bent at the waist.

"You can…"

"Duuuh! I am hooked into your brain, of course I know what you are thinking. This is a test, just like last time was a test. So show me what you are, a man of Gor, or another boy of Earth. Don't think about it, just do it."

"I suppose this is as a dream, so there is no solution to be had by trying to approach you."

"Hey, I told you, no answers until you answer me!"

"You can read my thoughts, you know about my conversation with the Captain."

"Oh now she is quite the prize, wouldn't you saaaay? She would fetch a lovely price with a little training."

"And that means you know about my fitful sleep."

"Is talking me into a false sense of security your plan here? Don't worry, you can answer that after you answer me so I can answer you."

"Which means you know about what kept me awake, staring into the night. Deliberating on the very question you seek an answer to with this test."

"Oooooh, you're catching on! I was worried with the way you just went along with them you were going to be just like the earthlings. Meek… small… compliant."

"It is prudent to do as your hosts do in foreign lands. But to return to the matter at hand, I have your answer."

"Boooring, wrong, No, you fail. You did as I told you to." Not Alice said, then stuck out her tongue at him and pointed her thumb to the earth below. "Get o-"

"Silence slave!"

"Oh… and just what makes me a slave, hm?"

"You dress as a slave, you are marked and collared as one. That would be enough for you to be bound in any place. But no that is not what makes you a slave in this moment, in this place."

"And just what does?"

"I do…"

The clinging plug suit was gone. He was now wrapped in his familiar scarlet, a sword at his hip. It was a split second for his hand to fly and draw the blade then but a half step to close with the girl who had taken on the countenance of Alice. His hand was in her hair, throwing her to the ground. He fell upon her, the tip of his blade resting upon the grass a hair's breadth from her nose, his knee on her back between her shoulders.

"For I am a warrior. My currency is steel, and with it I purchase that which I desire."

"Do you take me as a slave?" The edge was gone from her voice. Her eyes were focused on the steel that filled her vision.

"Yes, now speak as one."

"I am a slave." She said softly.

"Indeed."

"May a girl know her master's name?"

"You know my name, girl."

"A slave is desires to hear it again, as it pleases her master."

"You belong to Shinji of Ko-Ro-Ba."

"Master fights for Earth." Not-Alice said.

"But I am not of it."

She closed her eyes and Shinji saw her smile.

"No, master is not."

There was no jerk as he left the hill above the valley. He was once again in the entry plug, but also he was the giant. All around him was the steel of the cage.

"Shinji, can you hear me?"

"Yes, Maya."

"Great. Sorry that took so long, I don't blame you for falling asleep. Have a nice nap?"

"Yes. Pleasent dreams."

"Good to hear! Your synchro graph looks great, just stand by for another ten minutes or so we will have enough data. Then we will be done."

"Aye."

 _I'm not done testing you._

I did not tell you to speak, Shinji thought, and there was nothing more.

* * *

"What about band, can you play any musical instruments?"

The day had passed and it was now after dinner. Shinji had come to an accord with the tarn who shared the captain's quarters. Bits of food from his own plate avoided any further longing gazes at his fingertips. Presently, he and the captain were speaking about school, which he would start tomorrow.

His fingers clawed through his newly short hair. He grumbled through clenched teeth, glaring at her.

"Captain, I am of the caste…"

Shinji slammed his hands down on the kitchen table and stood, sending the chair tipping backwards.

"Of WARRIORS! If you wanted a musician then you requested the wrong profession!"

"Dammit, I am trying to help you!"

"Then simply order that I don't have to attend this school."

"I told you everyone has to go!"

"I beg your pardon, I was under the impression I was brought here to fight forces which may wipe out all life on your planet, if it had been said that academics was part of the mission I could have studied as a scribe instead." Shinji rubbed at his face, grousing under his breath.

"I am sorry captain, I beg you forgive my outburst." He said, righting his chair and taking his seat again.

"No, it's okay… I'm just… I know you're frustrated, really, I get it. This is all new to you and you have to learn all these new things and now you have to go to school and I get hey transferring into a new class is hard in the first place. Never mind what you are dealing with. We just need to figure this out, okay. Truce?"

Misato held out her hand to shake and he grabbed her by the wrist across the table.

"Truce."

When Shinji pulled his hand away, he tucked his closed fists beneath his chin, such that his jaw was resting across his knuckles.

"Can I look?"

"Be my guest." Misato said. She slid the sheet of paper listing the available elective classes across the table, spinning it around to face him. Only his eyes moved, scanning back and forth and he was silent for several minutes.

"Can I ask you a question, y'know about where you're from, your culture?"

"You are my superior, I am compelled to answer your questions and obey your orders." He replied, eyes not rising from the paper.

"What is with the whole putting people in castes thing, pigeonholing them?"

"Pigeonholing?"

"Eh? Oh sorry. It means like categorizing them and not allowing them outside that label."

"Ah." Shinji said. His eyes rolled up from the paper to meet her own. He had such an intense gaze like this, it reminded her of his father.

"I could ask you the obverse captain. This curriculum covers an enormous range of subjects. How are students supposed to master them in, what was you called it, a semester? Half a year to learn a language or an instrument is a ludicris speed."

"Okay, first off it is just one semester, nobody is expecting someone to master it in that time. It is supposed to give you a wide breadth of knowledge."

"If one does not expect to master it, why bother devoting the time? If it just a passing interest, someone may pursue it on their own surely. If the city, the state as you would say, is going to be providing for their education, should the instruction not be focused on their eventual occupation?"

Misato shrugged. She leaned back, balancing her chair until it rested against the counter's edge. She picked up her beer can with just her fingertips and moved it to the countertop behind her head.

"Because we value choice and free will. To me it sounds like your way assigns occupation at birth."

"A man may change his caste, if he shows the aptitude and commitment. And the caste will have him."

"What does _that_ mean?"

"What is that exactly?"

"If the caste will have him."

"Suppose if a halfwit wished to become a physician, or a mal-formed cripple a warrior? Neither one could do their duty and it would put others in danger, patients or comrades. Furthermore, when they are unable to earn a living doing these things, it falls on the caste to support them. So why would they accept them at all?"

"Okay, first off, don't say cripple, just don't. Or mal-formed."

Shinji lifted his head from his knuckles, tilting it sideways and looking at curiously. "Why not?"

"Just don't, neither is…. Neither is polite. The word we say instead is disabled."

"I see." He set his jaw back down across his fists. "You were saying?"

"Well okay, so you said…" Misato began, then reconsidered. "Okay so let's say a warrior like you is injured and it's bad. Like he is never going to walk again. He has become permanently disabled. What happens?"

"It would depend what he could still do. He may no longer have a place in the field, but he might train others, or if he could stand and had the eye for it, an archer on a wall."

"And what if there are no other jobs for him?"

"He could teach, just with his voice. I had an instructor in..."

Misato cut him off with a raised hand. "Let's say he can't even do that, just for the sake of argument. He is done, can't do anything for anyone ever again. This hypothetical veteran is alive, that's all."

Shinji's head rose a little, as if physically pushed back by the question.

"Well?"

"Then his existence would be a sorrowful one, if he truly could not do perform any duty, even to pass on what he knew to others. But he would be cared for."

"By who?"

"Whom." Shinji replied, quickly and reflexively.

"What?"

"By whom, not who."

Misato glared at the boy and he suddenly found something very interesting to stare at on the tabletop. "Tarl was a teacher once on Earth, that is what he taught me."

"Fine, by _whom_?"

"His caste. As a man has his duty to family and his caste and his city, so too do they have a duty to him."

Misato made a little hmm sound as she considered that. Shinji spoke next.

"A question."

"Go ahead."

"What if, in his days filled with nothing as you posit, he took up an interest in something, say pottery? And he had two working hands so he tries his hand at throwing a pot on the wheel. Behold, after much practice and failure, he can make a pot that will carry water."

"Okay."

"Then he could go to the potters and they would take him with open arms, so long as he can make a pot that will uphold their honor. Along with the water of course."

"Hmm, okay..." Misato was not convinced as she tilted the beer back, but she had to formulate how to make her point. The kid was smart, no doubt about it. Misato suspected either whatever training he had was more broad than he let on, or maybe he had been picked for some kind of officer track. He knew how to argue without sounding like an idiot.

"So warrior caste kids like you, you just automatically grow up to be warriors, no say in the matter?"

"If one displays a certain aptitude one may do something else, as I said."

"What if a kid just doesn't want to be a warrior?"

"As a people, we put great emphasis on duty, captain."

"Look, what I am trying to get at is it sounds like your warriors are conscripts. Your government calls on you to fight from pretty much birth and you go."

"I suppose that is correct, though I would not agree to the label of conscript. A conscript is forced into fighting, a warrior goes gladly. One conscripts peasants when one needs archers or other auxiliaries. We warriors are professionals."

"You know how I said before that we don't start military training until a person is of age?" She asked and Shinji nodded. "That's because for us, every soldier makes a choice and for us, you can't make that choice until you are an adult. See, every single one of us, from the commander, to me, all the way down to grunt guarding the door, we made a choice. We weren't forced into it by anyone or anything. Knowing what it entailed, we chose to put ourselves between harm and the people we swear to protect."

"To be commended, surely, but I think I would still have a man trained since he could walk by my side."

"Oh one guy, sure. But an army? No way. Give me a platoon of UN marines over a regiment of conscripts any day. I'll tell you, when the Americans were debating getting rid of conscription, one guy was arguing for the all volunteer force and this other guy, a general, says that will just give us an army of mercenaries, how can we trust them. So this guy looks at the general and he says better an army of highly motivated mercenaries than an army of slaves."

Oh that got him riled, Misato thought. She could see it in the way the skin around his eyes got all tense.

"I am of the high caste of warriors, I am no slave, Captain." He said, his tone clipped and his discomfort just oozing from out of it.

"Didn't say you were. It was just a metaphor someone else used."

"Hmph. Indeed."

His eyes and attention went back to the class list and Misato went back to her beer.

"English Literature."

Misato nearly choked at the sudden statement. She had to bring the chair back down and set her beer on the table before she caught her breath.

"Excuse me?"

"One of the elective courses here is English Literature. Tarl gave me many books and recited many poems from Earth, all in english. That makes six courses all together, which fulfills the requirement does it not?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah it does. 'Less they still require clubs, I dunno."

"Clubs?" Shinji said, exasperated. "There is more of this? When exactly am I to fit saving the world into this schedule?"

"Oh stop. Clubs are the fun stuff. It's like sports, team games that sort of thing. Oh, I bet you would love Kendo."

"Ken dough? I am not a baker either."

"Kendo, it is japanese swordsmanship."

"Oh!" Shinji finally dropped his hands to the table, his eyes alight. "Yes, that… that would be perfect. You know, Tarl always told me, whenever he visited someplace new, he always made sure to learn the local weapon."

"Oh. Thats sounds… like good advice. Heh." Misato said, forcing a smile.

* * *

 _The next morning..._

"I saw a map, I could have walked." Shinji said from the passenger seat as the alpine rolled smoothly through the city streets, its electric motors whining barely above idle.

"You saw the map once, for like two minutes. I showed you where the school so you knew where the nearest elevator down was."

"That is enough. We don't make maps of our cities, it would be all too easy for the information to fall into enemy hands."

"Don't suppose anyone has ever called that a little paranoid."

"I assume so, and also that they lived out their days toiling for the civilization that found their maps and knew the best ways to enter their city."

Misato shook her head. Every conversation with him was an adventure at least. "So you what, just remember all the streets?"

"Aye."

"Okay then, so you remember what you are going to tell everyone today, right?"

"I am Shinji Ikari. I have been estranged from my father since after the death of my mother. In the interim I lived with a private tutor and family friend in foreign lands, only recently having returned thus accounting for my poor grasp of the language. If anyone inquires directly, I will admit my father is Commander Gendo Ikari, however I have no association with NERV myself and he does not talk about work."

"Well done." Misato pointed forward. "There is your school."

"Please stop here so I may approach on foot."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to appear an invalid who must be shuttled everywhere by a carriage."

"You know what? Fine." Misato pulled to the sidewalk.

"Okay, so where are you going if there is an alarm?" She asked after he had stepped out but before he had closed the door.

"There is an emergency access elevator at the North West corner of the school."

"Good. I'll meet you right back here after school is out, okay?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And the school has my number to call if you need me."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And your lunches are paid for, just show your ID card."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And don't be too formal, I mean be respectful but not…" Misato was cut off as he swung the door shut.

"Goodbye, Captain Katsuragi."

The captain pulled away. There were other male students dressed as he was, white shirts and grey trousers. There were female students as well. They wore blue skirts and red ribbons around their necks, through the folded down necks of their shirts. Shinji tried to ignore the collar comparisons his mind was making but the bare thigh between the female's short skirts and their high socks made it difficult.

He observed them, male and female. Everyone walked in a similar fashion, there was no bowing in deference or hiding faces. Many of the boys carried their book bags over their shoulder, so he did the same with his left hand. None were openly armed, unsurprising but still notable. Shinji was not sure if the captain wanted him to know about the weapon she carried under her jacket or not, but unless it was in a book bag, these clothes left little room to conceal anything greater than a small knife.

Pockets were strange to him, but as he hung his right hand by the thumb from the one on his hip, Shinji was satisfied that he looked like any of the earthling males. As he walked, he continued looking each one over. There was not a great deal of variation among them. This one's hair was longer or shorter than that one, a shade darker or lighter, a measure taller or shorter.

Brown hair, brown hair, brown hair… white? No, blue.

Shinji quickened his stride. Blue hair wrapped in white bandages. It was her, the girl from the hallway. The other pilot, the one called the first. The girl with the crimson eye..

She was a comrade, another like him. Perhaps she was Gorean too? Shinji could not recall ever seeing anyone who looked remotely like her.

Shinji dipped his shoulder to pass between two other students, uttering a quick pardon as he passed. Five more steps, four more, three more…

"Tal, sana." He said as he stepped to her side. First may be a rank, it would be prudent to call her by it. She turned her head and regarded him, but did not speak at first. One eye was still covered and she carried her bag at her side with one hand, the other bandaged and slung across her belly.

"Hello." She responded before looking forwards again. Not 'tal', no spark at meeting a fellow expatriate, no understanding. She was not gorean.

"You had just been injured when we last met, do you… recall me?"

"Yes. You were with the commander."

"Aye, that was me."

She did not respond. Truthfully she did not acknowledge him further at all.

"You are a pilot as well." Shinji tried.

"Yes." And again, nothing further, not even a look.

"Then we are comrades." Shinji reached to shake her hand before remembering she had no hand available, one bandaged and one holding her bag.

"My name is Shinji. What is your name?"

"Rei."

Shinji gave a small bow of his head. "Then you are well met Lady Rei. I am happy we will be attending this academy together."

Shinji was most pleased with himself when that got a reaction out of her. Her one visible eyebrow arched when she looked at him. She said nothing but the question was clear enough.

"If we are comrades, then you are a warrior to me. That makes you high caste like myself, and a free woman of high caste deserves deference, for she is precious."

This was all very unusual to Rei. Normally she was rarely spoken to outside of the geofront. It was her assumption that nobody took interest in her. Commander Ikari had instructed her not to concern herself with it and so she had not.

She was… precious?

"You look as though you are healing well. Not that I thought you looked poorly of course. I mean I couldn't afford your… Nevermind."

"What did you say?"

"No, please, it was ill advised, a crude saying, think nothing of it."

Nobody had spoken to her like this before. She had received compliments when she had completed a task successfully, but Rei had the sense that the third child, Shinji, was complimenting… her. Only the commander had ever done so, and even that had been in passing.

"Please finish." She said.

"Pardon?"

"Please finish what you were saying."

"What I was going to say literally was I could not afford your legs. It is an… undignified way of complimenting you. I apologize. I mean I don't apologize for complimenting you, just I am sorry I complemented you in that fashion… that did not sound right either, eeer..."

"I see."

"I should have… I meant to say is that you are quite beautiful."

What?

She stopped. He kept walking, only stopping when she did not follow. Other children were walking around and between them.

"Lady Rei?"

"Th-thank you."

"You are welcome."

With that she took the two steps to catch up. They spoke of the little things. What class was he in, the same as hers it turned out. He told her 'tal' was a greeting where he was from, and that he had called her sana, meaning first, because that is what he heard her called. She told him first was merely an identifier of her being the first pilot identified. He was the third. The second was elsewhere.

"Where?"

"Germany."

"Where is that?"

"Very far."

"I… see. And you, from where have you come?"

"Here."

"Oh. Pardon me, I thought perhaps all three of us are from places far afield."

"Where are you from?"

"I thought being a pilot you would be told. I am from Gor."

"Where is that?"

"Very very far."

She showed him where to go and how to store his shoes. This he found bizarre and annoying. His shoes were the tall lace up boots he had been given, while the other students wore shoes with few laces or none at all. Why change shoes at all and why so many kinds? A good pair of sandals could have done for all and been more comfortable. Despite the time it took, Lady Rei stood by waiting. Once he had finally gotten the boots off and slipped the small canvas shoes on, she guided him through the press of students to the room where his class was to meet.

"Hello, you must be Shinji Ikari! I'm Hikari Horaki, your class representative. We're really excited to have someone new, and from abroad even."

Oh thank the sardar he thought. They spoke English in school.

Shinji shook the girl's offered hand but looked for Rei. She had slipped away from his side and was sitting by the window at one of the many desks that took up most of the room. And for the same reasons he consciously ignored the red ribbon around the neck of her shirt, that stirred something in him. His right hand, hanging at his side now, clenched shut. She was a free woman and his comrade. It was not reasonable to want to take hold of her and keep her at his side. It was not reasonable to want to lead an injured woman to the first alcove he could find and coax the true female within her out.

But a teasing, taunting voice was reminding him that his homestone was Ko-Ro-Ba. Not this place. And so by her laws he could take this woman, this barbarian, and do with her as he pleased.

 _Such a pretty little thing. The captain is lovely to be sure, but her? Oh the things you could do with her, master._

Silence girl, Shinji pushed the voice that spoke with Alice's face down, along with the desire that spurred it on. In any case she was injured and to do anything to her could cause great harm to a comrade.

"So do you know how japanese classrooms work?"

Shinji had not realized she had continued to speak. "Oh, pardon, no, my apologies, I do not."

"Oh no no no, I understand you have spent most of your life out of the country, so this must all be very new to you."

"Yes, quite."

"Well, as I am the representative for Class 2-A. I lead the class in group activities and coordinate assignments for classroom duties."

"I understand, we have a similar position where I come from, called a cohortarch."

"Oh, that's great, so I don't really need to explain that. Our homeroom teacher, Mr. Nebukawa, will be here soon and when he enters we show him respect and then class begins. Go ahead and stand right up here and Mr. Nebukawa will assign you a seat."

"Understood, thank you."

"Pardon me for being rude, but how is your Japanese? It's no shame if it's not very good, it's a hard language. It is just there is this tradition, even though our school does most stuff in english that you introduce yourself to class in Japanese."

"It is… poor."

"It is alright, like I said it is a hard language. When Mr. Nebukawa asks you to introduce yourself, just bow and say watashi wa Ikari Shinji desu douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu. It's easy, don't worry. I promise we don't have that much public speaking."

Oh yes, an easy thing, not a mouthful of unfamiliar syllables at all, Shinji thought. These people baffled him. To meet people for the first time with 'please take care of me' was… He couldn't imagine saying that to someone, it sounded like begging for quarter before hostilities were declared. If a student joined a class like that back home, even the scribes and the artisans would laugh him out. Why would he worry about speaking to others? A man should be proud to be allowed to address his peers.

No. Shinji was quite done acquiescing to this place, to their defeatism. He was not like them, he was not an earthling and he most certainly not going to ask their mercy.

"Stand Bow Sit!"

What in all the hells was this? Shinji watched the small man, barely more than a dwarf and covered in wrinkles and pox marks slowly enter the room.

"Hmm, you must be our new student." He said, his voice just instantly grating. It reminded Shinji of rusty hinges opening. He spoke in Japanese, thankfully slowly. Shinji held out his hand to shake, but the teacher did not take it.

In just a few days on Earth, Shinji had encountered many things he had been told about and only now saw for the first time. Until this moment they had all been easy to rationalize. Like this thing he knew by one name was called something else but not quite.

The grey and wrinkled man before him was the exception. He knew that on Earth, unlike on Gor, people grew old. Tarl had explained that, without the medicine goreans took for granted, humans barely lived a hundred years and only then if exceedingly careful. Once they had passed their prime less than halfway through that time though, their bodies began to fail. Their bones grew frail, their joints stiff, their teeth fell out and they became more susceptible to disease. Eventually their organs failed and for the truly unfortunate their minds faltered until they were like children.

He had seen men who were disfigured, cripples, those afflicted with the wasting disease dar-kosis, men who had been burned from head to toe and somehow survived. One does not forget such things and he would not forget meeting this man today. Such misfortune left its mark upon one's mind.

On Gor all, from the wealthiest to the meanest, even slaves, receive a medical treatment known as the stabilization serum. For a very few, these treatments take longer to take full hold and so a distinguished bit of grey hair or a more mature countenance may be seen from time to time. However for the most part, aging is arrested while a man or woman is in their prime. A man may grow stronger or let himself go to fat. He may acquire scars and other marks of his life lived. Should he live long enough, he may grow wise. But he would not grow old. He would not be betrayed by his own biology to fall apart like ragged cloth.

"Yes." Shinji said, his arm still outstretched. The small man held a velice in his left hand and kept his right unmoving behind his back. Normally Shinji would have expected a dagger from that position but the with the distinct hunch in the man's back, he could see over to the teacher's empty hand.

"I read you have returned only recently to Japan." The teacher said.

"That is true." Shinji responded and withdrew his hand.

"It is customary to bow when greeting someone, especially someone of higher social status."

"I… shall remember that." Shinji stood aside and the teacher passed to a podium at the head of the room, in front of a writing slate that covered the whole of the wall.

Bow? _BOW?!_ He was to supplicate himself before… Shinji stopped his anger before it bled out to be visible. He was a warrior, one of the five high castes. Not a hands worth of days before this moment, he had saved the lives of everyone in this room, including the aged teacher who thought he was worthy to be bowed to.

 _They should be the one's bowing down. Don't let them change you master._

When I desire the guidance of a slave I will ask for such, he thought, and the voice was silent again. Not that she was so far wrong. If they knew what he had done, none would presume to be his better.

"Thank you. Good morning class, today I would like to introduce you to our new student. He has lived most of his life abroad, so I hope you will be understanding and give him a warm welcome regardless. Mr. Ikari, please introduce yourself."

Shinji, thin and tight of skin, stood anxious in front of the children who were supposed to be his new cohort. He had liked his old cohort just fine. He liked his crimson tunics and leather sandals much more than the ill fitting shirt and itchy trousers he wore now.

The class representative had told him what he was supposed to do here. He was to bow and greet the the children, to beg like a pauper for their sympathy.

"My name is Shinji, I am from the city of Ko-Ro-Ba."

He crossed his arms over his chest, defiant. He could feel the expectation, that he should kowtow to them now.

"When I have cause to use a second name, it is Cabot, not Ikari."

He was gorean, a warrior. He bowed to nobody. He begged from no man.

"I am the pilot of evangelion unit one."

Gasps, shock, confused looks. Well well, that went over as expected.

"Uh...Uh...Er…" Mr. Nebukawa stuttered.

Shinji looked at his new teacher, smiling.

"Where shall I sit?"

"Uh...ah...uh-uh… um…. R-r-r-right over there." Mr. Nebukawa said, wrinkled hand raised and, this was rather pleasing, shaking. "Between Mr. Aida, with the glasses and Ms. Ayanami with the… blue hair."

"My thanks." Shinji picked up his school bag. It was fortunate to be placed so near his new comrade. The whispers were easily heard as he took the short walk to his seat.

"That kid's the pilot?" One said.

"No way, look at him…" Said another

"That foreign name is so cool..." A girl stage whispered to her friend.

"And he's got that dark hair blue eyes thing going on, oooooh." She replied.

"Where the fuck is koroba?"

Mr. Nebukawa had began to speak as he sat down but as soon as the old man turned to his slate, his new neighbor with the glasses had turned in his seat to face Shinji.

"Tal." The boy with freckles and lenses upon his face said.

"Tal?" Shinji replied, rather surprised.

"I didn't think anyone else read those old books, I love'em." He continued.

"Old books?" What was this boy on about?

"Yeah, the gor books, adventures of Tarl Cabot and all that?"

"Oh, you've read Tarl's books!"

"Yeah, the whole series."

"Truly? I did not believe him when he first told me he had published his autobiography on Earth."

"Huh?"

An explanation, quietly carried out, and several thrown pieces of chalk which proved while Mister Nobokawa was old his ears still functioned perfectly fine, and it was time for the midday meal. Shinji walked with his new acquaintance and the good Lady Rei had chosen to silently accompany them as they walked out onto the grounds to eat. Kensuke had been good enough to walk him through the process of obtaining his food, and Shinji was pleased the custom of bartering one's rations for more of another item was alive and well on Earth.

Rei had brought her own meal which lacked any meat. When he asked why, she explained.

"I do not eat meat."

"Why not, does it disagree with you?"

"I just do not."

Shinji had gladly traded the rather questionable looking sandwich of ground meat to his new friend. There was meat to be had at home, he was curious about the colorful fruits, of which a variety had been available. With Kensuke's portions he now had an apple and a banana to try. The peaches and plums could wait until tomorrow. He had found it funny at the time, but when Tarl had begun to teach him English, many of the books he used, meant for small children, used foods to teach the letters. And so he knew what these things were called and what they looked like, but now finally would discover what they tasted like.

Lacking any other guide, he chose to proceed alphabetically and began with the apple. Kensuke, Ken as he preferred, had led them to a spot where a stone seating bench circled the trunk of a broad shade tree.

"Hey Ayanami, do you believe him?" Ken asked Rei.

"I… have no opinion on the matter. I do not know where Gor is and so I cannot say how probable it is that one is from there."

The flavor of the apple was pleasing, not unlike a larna fruit.

"I still don't know if I believe you."

"You won't believe I am a perfectly normal person from far away, but you believe I 'pilot a giant robot' as you say."

"We'll sure, I've seen the robot. I did not say I was sure you did that either, it's just more likely."

"Lady Rei."

"Hm?" Rei looked up from her food, greyish brown noodles still hanging from her mouth. Soba, she had said they were called when he asked.

"Will you not confirm to this man our shared occupation?" Shinji asked. She quickly drew the noodles into her mouth with a slurp and swallowed.

"The commander says we are not to discuss that openly."

"And yet you just have. Master Aida, your proof."

"I…" She looked at him strangely before realization crossed her crimson eyes. Rei did not think herself one to act out so, but there was the tiniest huff and flare of nostrils as she returned to her noodles.

"Well damn." Kensuke said. "Okay fine, I'll concede the giant robot until evidence otherwise presents itself. The whole Gor thing though, I'm sorry I like the books, I love the books, but you are not going to convince me for one second that you are from another planet hidden in this solar system. I have argued this point till I was blue in the face, just putting a planet on the other side of the sun from us wouldn't work. There would be gravimetric distortions which could easily be detected."

"It is said the Sardar may control the force of gravity."

"Don't even start that 'the priest kings did it' explanation."

"And yet they did."

"You have got to give me something else. Speak gorean."

"Very well, what should I say?"

"Whatever you want."

"Lo Shinji, civitatis Ko-Ro-Ba."

"Let me guess, that was I am Shinji of Ko-Ro-Ba?"

"How perceptive my friend. Perhaps you can puzzle this out. La ja sa-kimaco Rei." Shinji said, gesturing towards Rei.

"Uh, well I know sa is usually daughter or sister, and la is usually like 'I am'. The phrase La Kajira comes up a lot in the books y'know."

"You are on the scent, care to take a guess?

"Naw, I got nothin'."

"What about you, m'lady?"

"Hm?"

"Would you guess what I said?"

She looked at them and did not speak, just staring for a long moment before answering. "This is my comrade Rei."

"Very good M'lady!" Shinji said, raising his hands in praise. "Exactly, skillfully done. Perhaps you have a gift for languages."

"Come on, give me another one." Ken plied him.

"Neim podia she poly jesuil." Shinji replied.

"Not even going to try. What did you say?"

Shinji gestured to Rei. "Her legs are very beautiful."

"I… Uh, well yeah." Kensuke stammered. Shinji glanced at their blue haired companion and was pleased to find her pale cheeks a brilliant shade of pink.

This place did not bother Shinji as it had earlier. It was certainly an annoyance to be placed back in school, but he was already making new friends.

"So uh… Gor."

"Yes, what of it?"

"Tarl writes a lot about uh… you know, kajiras."

"Kajirae."

"Huh?"

"You meant the plural of slave girl, yes? The word is kajirae."

"Oh."

"I have not read Tarl's manuscripts, however I imagine he does indeed discuss slave girls often. He is quite fond of them. He says he loved a free woman once and it went so poorly he never could again."

"Talena of Ar, she is a character in several books."

"What?!" Shinji cringed, a look of revulsion on his face. "The priest-kings come down from their mountains and save us all from her. Evil, wicked woman. Crazy."

Shinji spat on the ground.

"He said he loved her though."

"Foolishly, but all men err. The lucky live and hopefully are the wiser for it. No, she put him off free women for a time, but there was another. This was before I came to him you see, I never met her. He said little of how she died, only that it was far away and beyond his reach. He believed allowing her to go far from him, out from his protection, was his greatest mistake."

"Wow, thats rough. He never wrote about anyone like that."

Shinji shrugged. "Who would you relate such hardship, given the choice?"

"Fair point. Anyway, I know it's like normal for you but is all the stuff about slave girls true?"

"As I said, I have not read what he has written, but I see no reason he would lie."

"About how no matter what they are like before, they all become sex crazed and willing?"

"I would not say crazed. They just express themselves without restraint, it is only natural."

"And you can just go buy a drink and…"

"You mean at a tavern? Certainly, the girl comes with the cup."

"Dude, I am so jealous of you."

"Why?"

"You are an Eva pilot and you grew up on Gor! I don't know if I should be happy you told me it was real or sad I can't go!"

"Well…"

Shinji was interrupted by the roar of engines and the barking of tires near the school gate. The three children looked up to see a mass of men in black led by one very agitated Misato Katsuragi. Shinji could not understand a word of what she was saying. However he understood very keenly that it was coming out very fast and very loud, from a very angry looking woman.

"Uuuuuhh… Me no speakee japanese good?" Shinji said, raising his hands.

Shinji's hair was short, but not too short for her to grab him by his scalp.

"You little idiot, just wait till your father hears about this!" She said, in very clear English.

"Uuuuuh, so are you uh, Missus Cabot?"

Kensuke immediately regretted choosing to speak at this time. Misato held onto Shinji, but turned her terrible wrath upon the glasses wearing teen.

"Who are you?"

"Uuuum, Kensuke Aida, class 2-A! Um, Ma'am." Ken replied, open hands above his shoulders. "I'm a… I'm a…"

"Captain, he is my friend, he has been most helpful." Shinji interjected.

"Did I ask you something?" Misato asked, whipping her attention back to Shinji.

"No, Ma'am."

"Damn right. Now you." She said, looking back to the boy with the glasses. "What makes you think I'm old enough to be his mother?"

"I-I uh, didn't mean it that way Ma'am, I just thought like maybe his dad's partner like a girlfriend or…"

This was not having the intended effect. Quite the opposite in fact. She was turning red and was huffing like a bull ready to charge.

"I'm... just... gonna shut up now."

"First bright thing out of your mouth." Misato looked back to Shinji. "You, go."

Misato pointed and Shinji followed the fellows in the black clothes and dark lenses to a likewise black car. The kid in the glasses had run off and Misato now turned to Rei.

"How much did he say?"

"The third stated his occupation as a an evangelion pilot and claimed to be from a city called Ko-Ro-Ba, from a place called Gor."

"Okay… fuck, damage control is going to be a pain on this..."

"Captain…"

"Yes, Rei?"

"I wish to know more about him."

"Huh, you and me both, I still have to read that damn file."

"May I read it?"

"Um, I don't know what you are cleared for. I'm sorry Rei, I just can't share it."

"I understand." And with that, the blue haired girl picked up her lunch box, turned, and walked away.

"That girl…" Misato shook her head and headed for the waiting car. This little shit storm wasn't going to solve itself. The first child being weird was nothing new.

* * *

There were four people in the rather enormous and most ominus office of Commander Gendo Ikari. The commander, his second in command, his operations commander, and one evangelion pilot. Gendo sat at his desk, with Vice Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki at his shoulder. In front of the desk, Captain Misato Katsuragi stood facing away from them and toward Shinji, who himself stood at attention and was making every effort to keep his gaze anywhere but on the captain.

"You have ruined everything we put in place to protect you!"

Shinji had been brought before superiors and thoroughly lectured before. It was expected growing up in the warrior caste, there was a certain reputation for cavalier attitudes to uphold. If it had not happened at least twice before one turned twelve, the general consensus was the boy was odd and, even worse, boring.

"Your identity? Burned. Any protection you may have had blending in, gone! Do you know how I found out?"

Dressed down, he believed was the phrase Tarl had used to describe such this manner of scolding. Surviving it was like surviving a storm, stand firm and remember it can't last forever. Stood up straight as he was, she could look directly into his eyes in her heeled shoes and it was the kind of gaze that could sour milk. Not that he was meeting her gaze, he was not an idiot.

"Er, no Ma'am."

"When I want a goddamn answer I will tell you!"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"I found out because your classmates had your picture and that you were a pilot posted all over the internet!"

"The…?"

"Did I tell you to speak?!... Well?"

"I was not sure if this was one of the times I supposed to answer."

"Grrrrrr… The point is all of your protection is now compromised. You are now a giant target and a liability! You disobeyed direct orders!"

"Captain Katsuragi, that will be sufficient." Gendo Ikari interjected.

"Commander?"

"I do not think continuing in this manner will produce any additional result, at least any that we desire. I imagine by now Shinji has made the choice to stand firm and endure. Isn't that right, Shinji?"

Misato stepped aside to give the commander full view of the boy.

"Aye, Ubar."

"Ubar? Hm, an interesting choice of word. Appropriate as it is, I would prefer commander or Sir."

"As you wish, sir."

"Excellent. Captain, professor, leave us."

Kozo was swiftly out the door, but Misato looked across the desk. "Sir, are you…"

"I am quite sure Captain. It was undutiful of me to not speak with my son earlier and I think such things should be kept between a father and his son."

"Sir, I don't think…"

"Objection noted captain, now please, wait outside."

She left, leaving behind Shinji looking over this Gendo Ikari. He had recognized him on sight, there was enough of a memory for that. That he shared his own countenance was an aid as well. However that was all there was to the man before him. What was there to see of him? All Shinji had observed was two tense conversations with Tarl and the man who raised him seemed to have a talent in provoking those sorts of reactions in people.

And now, they were just… staring at eachother. Gendo broke the silence.

"So you were raised in Ko-Ro-Ba?"

"Aye."

"I am surprised Mr. Cabot did not choose to make his home in Port Kar."

"Ko-Ro-Ba was his first homestone. I have visited Port Kar."

"Have you? And the house of Samos no doubt."

"Aye."

"How is the old slaver?"

"Successful. I met him only briefly. I don't have much news to bring of your homestone father, except that the city still stands."

"As she will for a great while longer. Forgive me, idle talk in a tense situation is a common habit of this place. I am sure you find it as annoying as I once did."

"You are no longer bothered by it?"

"I have taken on a great many things I did not understand upon my arrival." Gendo at last dropped his hands from beneath his nose. He was smiling as he sat up into the back of his chair. "However I think I might still understand a man of Gor like yourself."

"We are both men of Gor, are we not?"

"I count myself now as a man of Earth. Tokyo-3, this place…" Gendo rapped the knuckles of his left hand against his desk. "Is my homestone as we would say."

"Then you might try, but I was taught that the men of Earth, for the most part, do not understand us. May I ask a question before we continue?"

"Certainly."

"How well known is your providence?"

"The most senior staff here and a limited number of backers are aware. While you made the choice to reveal yourself, I would appreciate if you left that decision to me regarding my own origins. Captain Katsuragi is not aware."

"That is reasonable and I will abide by it."

"Thank you, now on the matter of your behavior in class today. You would have us all think this little defiance shows you are proud, and will not be so easily ordered about. Ironic for one who claims to be a warrior. However, truly, your concern is something else. I am sure you find the enforced egalitarianism, not to mention having to attend school, to be utterly stifling. You do not even have your sword. What is that charming expression about the coinage of warriors?"

"I am sure you know it."

"Oh certainly! But I want to hear it from you. Speak."

"I will not be ordered like a slave."

"Humor me then, I am homesick."

"The coinage of a warrior is steel, with it he purchases what pleases him."

"On Earth, the currency of choice is… currency. We don't put small matters of honor to violence. We reserve that for things that matter. Lives, people, resources. But we don't have the lives or resources to waste on fighting to determine the righteous."

"There are no small matters of honor."

"There are nothing but small matters when it comes to honor, Shinji. Hurt feelings and bruised pride is all it ever is."

"I pity you for your shame and weakness!" Shinji barked, hands clenched into fists. "Tarl told me about you. You were never of the warriors, you were nothing but a pirate. You wouldn't understand."

"Fortunate I was. A pirate is, by necessity, a realist. And do not talk to me of my weakness, boy. Such talk means nothing coming from a child, totally dependent for survival on another."

"I am not a child, and I don't need you to survive!"

"Truly? You cannot even read without assistance, you do not speak the local language. Have you learned about the monetary system yet? Did you think you could just walk in here like Tarl Cabot, learn the local weapon, and fit in? All you have is pride, no power. When you have learned to be a man, of any kind, then we will speak of these things."

"I can learn. The language, your money, and the weapon too!"

"Once you have learned the first two, we will discuss the third. If you behave."

"And what is that to mean?"

"Until you have shown you are able to behave as a responsible young man here, you will undertake no martial instruction outside that given to you here by Captain Katsuragi."

"And what exactly does a woman have to teach me about fighting? The use of poison?"

"That you say as much shows how poorly you understand Earth, Shinji. Now go."

Shinji did not know much of how men of Earth swore and profaned. However a gesture from Tarl's first home sufficed as he raised two fingers in a V sign with the knuckles towards his father.

"Out."

"Sardar take you."

"Out. And watch your language."

* * *

Kensuke walked beside Rei as they left the school yard after classes were dismissed. He had never spoken to her at length before today. She had always seemed so distant. Not like she held herself above it all, just like she wasn't really there in the present. Their new friend, if you could call him a friend after a half day of school, had changed that. NERV coming and hauling him away was all the confirmation the gossips needed. He was the pilot, and where was this Ko-Ro-Ba place?

Kensuke and Rei were the ones he had spoken to, so there had been some curiosity around them at first, but that had died out by fifth period.

"Damn, she was scary. Hot, but scary. Who is she?"

"Captain Katsuragi, Head of Combat Operations."

"So both of you are pilots then?"

"I have been ordered not discuss it."

"Come on, cat's out of the bag on this. I won't tell anyone, I am just curious."

"Why do you wish to know more about us?"

Kensuke shrugged. "I'm a sixteen year old boy, giant robots are cool."

"I have been ordered not to discuss it."

"Alright, I get it."

"... Do you know more about him?"

"Shinji? Well I mean if he is really from where he says he is, I read the books. The guy he says raised him, Tarl Cabot, is a character in an old sci-fi series."

"I will find these books."

"Let me save you the trouble." Kensuke kneeled and opened his book bag on the ground. He took out his school laptop. "Okay, let's see who has an unsecured network… there we go. Aaaaand sent you a link, you can download them there."

"Thank you." And with that she turned away. This was where their paths diverged.

"Hey Ayanami."

She turned her head, one crimson eye looking over her shoulder at him.

"If you like them, maybe you can tell me some not too secret stuff? Y'know, quid pro quo."

"Good bye."

"Alright Alright…" He said, hefting the bag over his shoulder, the computer packed away. "Seeya…"

He was five paces down the street when he heard her.

"Wait."

"Hm?"

"He is the son of Commander Ikari."

"No shit? Thanks Ayanami, and don't worry I can keep a secret if you can tell me anything else. I'll see ya tomorrow, alright?"

"Yes."

Rei did not know anything else about him. Not yet.

* * *

Gendo Ikari and Kozo Fuyutsuki were wrapping up the day in Gendo's office. What little damage had remained after Unit One had regenerated had been repaired. Zero was still being dug out of bakelite. Two was on its way to Wilhelmshaven. The Americans had nothing to say about Three and Four save that "we're working on it". Five was still at its appointed vigil and of course the old men were not saying a thing about six.

"Do you think it was wise, what you said to him earlier?"

"I said a many things to a great many people today, professor." His head down, scanning the sheaf of documents before him.

"You know very well I mean to your son, Gendo."

"What did I say that you took issue with?"

"You provoked him. You pushed him away. If you had taken the opportunity to endear yourself to him, which would have provided you with more positive influence upon him in the long term. Now he is likely to hate you, or at least claim he does."

Gendo looked up at his vice-commander.

"And what action will he take upon that sentiment? He has been raised such that he will never back down from duty, so we need not worry that he will refuse to fight. Rather if anything he will try all the harder to impress us."

"And when he inevitably subverts your attempts to limit his activities?"

"Why would I disapprove of him formulating and executing a strategy based on subversion and guile? He has been taught from childhood how to handle things directly, it is a fine time for him to learn to be circumspect."

"You expect a surprising amount of compliance from a young man who, when dismissed, responded with non-verbal obscenity and a curse for your death."

"And yet he left." Gendo said, then returned to his paperwork. The conversation, Kozo understood, had been tabled.

"You know…" The old professor added, a small smile on his thin lips. "Ubar is a rather appropriate title for you. The definition is, if memory serves, identical to that of the original Roman imperator. A temporary tyrant, appointed by civilian authorities, to take power in a crisis until its resolution."

"And like the Romans, if he should choose to keep his hold on power he need only the strength of arms to hold it."

"Hm. Suitable indeed."

* * *

"Alright, I'll bite." Misato began. They were seated at the kitchen table. Dinner had been prepared and eaten in tense silence.

"Pardon me, what are you going to bite?"

"Figure of speech. What made you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Oh my god, you are just like the commander… What made you break protocol and identify yourself instead of using the identity provided?"

"I dislike lying." He responded, flippantly.

"Dammit Shinji, stop being such a little shit!"

"Excuse me?" Shinji responded with none of playfulness that had been there a moment before.

"What are you trying to prove with this? I know you're not stupid, so why did you do it? Not fifteen minutes before we went over the whole story in the car together, so I know you didn't forget. You memorized a city map in a few seconds, you can remember a cover story. So what was it?"

"I was..." Shinji looked away from her. "Upset."

"I never would have guessed."

"Sarcasm, glorious."

"What made you upset, was it something I did, did someone say something?"

"It was…." Shinji said, drawing out the 'S' sound as he considered his words. "A combination of things."

"Okay, start from the beginning."

"When Rei…"

"Did she upset you?"

"What? No no, Lady Rei is wonderful, very nice. Pretty too…"

"Oh. My. God." The captain said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I don't even want to touch that conversation right now. Keep going, what got you mad?"

"Well the cohortarch, I'm sorry class representative, she instructed me on how I should introduce myself and it was just shameful. 'Please take care of me' who would say something like that on a first meeting."

"Oh for… really, that's it?!"

"Well there was something else I suppose, the…"

"We are staying on this a moment. Okay, I know your Japanese is not very good, but that is not what that phrase means."

"But…"

"Those words mean that, but when used together in that way it means 'let's have good relations'." Misato said. "It's about the context."

"Ah…" Shinji said, his face quickly falling. "Oh…"

"Yeah."

"That is truly a sensible and diplomatic way to greet a group one is joining."

"Yep." Misato followed up with a sip of beer. "How are you feeling about that right now?"

"Well… like a bit of a little shit I suppose."

"Good. So what was the other thing?"

"I owe you an apology."

"The look on your face just now was more than enough. Tell me about the other thing."

"It was the teacher."

"What did he say?"

"Well he was disrespectful but what bothered me was that he was… old."

Misato stared at him over the top of her beer can. "And?"

"Captain you must understand, we don't grow old."

"Huh?"

"We have a medicine that everyone, even slaves get. Anybody who ever sees a physician receives it. It causes the body to stop aging."

"Wait a second, are you telling me you're immortal?"

"Not truly, we just do not age once the treatments take hold. There are many ways to die, but the thought of one's own body breaking down and withering away…" Shinji gave a shudder. "It is a terrifying thought. The teacher, he was hunched over like a cripple."

"Don't say that word."

"Disabled, my apologies. But I could see his body failing, his skin looked like thin paper, his eyes were clouded. He looked… withered and weak."

She set her beer down and leaned forward,resting her chin across laced fingers. "And this upset you?"

"Yes… I suppose you people have come to terms with it and accepted it. Tarl has told me limited lifespan creates a certain beautiful urgency. To me though, I suppose I found it most fearful."

"I don't think anybody truly comes to terms with it, Shinji. It is a constant. But you people don't age?"

"No."

"How does that work? Do you just go to the doctor when you decide you are happy with your body or what?"

"No no, it does not work like that. It is not immediate. One receives the stabilization treatment and it takes hold over a period of time. That period varies from person to person, one may look more or less youthful. It may take hold as soon as one reaches their full growth or it may take a while and a man might gain some grey hair. So I will continue to grow, I'm still young, but as long as I keep myself alive I will not expire just because of age."

"Hell, I'd kill for that, lots of people would. Bring that here and you could be a rich man."

"No, I do not think so. It is given freely to all back home and I feel it would be unconscionable to profit from it."

"What?!"

"No compensation is expected, it is a service."

"You give away immortality!"

"Not immortality, there is no such thing. But nobody, not even the lowly, not even slaves, are made to suffer that way."

"Wow…"

"Is that so surprising?"

"Well… yeah."

"It is embarrassing that I was so brash based on a misunderstanding."

"Those are the times when we tend to act the worst I guess. You had the talking to coming, but I'm sorry for misestimating you… and your culture. Maybe if we learn more about each other these things can be avoided in the future."

"We have a saying that there no apologies between friends, they are not needed."

"So are you saying we are friends?"

"We sleep in the same space with no locks between us and haven't killed each other yet. Some cultures would call that a courtship, but I will settle for friends."

* * *

"Hey Ayanami, you seen Shinji?"

Kensuke had become well acquainted with his new alien friend and his absence was immediately apparent from just the energy, or lack thereof, in the classroom as Ken entered. It was Thursday, and would have been Shinji's fourth day at school.

"He will indisposed today." Rei responded, resting her chin in her palm and looking out at the clouds. The caste was off her arm and both red eyes looked at the sky uncovered.

"So, he's busy?"

"That is what I said."

"Pilot stuff?"

"I am not to discuss it."

"Soooo…" Kensuke said, sliding down into his seat. "Which book are you on?

Rei pivoted her chin on her hand to look at him. "Maruaders."

"Aaaaah, the Torvladlanders. Nine books in a week is pretty good, you must be enjoying yourself."

"Twelve."

"Hm?"

"I researched alternate orders of reading based on interest. I have read chronologically up to the ninth book and… some others."

"Like what?"

"The eleventh, nineteenth, and twenty second books."

Ken wrinkled his eyebrows and began to mumble and count on his fingers for a short moment. "The slave books?" He finally asked.

"Yes. I found them to be… compelling." She said, turning back to the clouds.

"Oh. Oooooooh…" Well, that got awkward.

Of the three dozen books of the gorean chronicles, the large majority focus on the doings of Tarl Cabot, ostensibly autobiographically. Kensuke had recently found that what he assumed to be a literary conceit was in fact true. Of the remainder of the books, there are a number which show the perspective of Earth women brought to Gor and made slaves. Among those were _Slave girl_ , _Kajira_ , and _Dancer_ , the books Rei had just reported reading.

"Sooooo… You know Toji, right?"

"Who?"

"Suzuhara, y'know, big guy who wears his gym clothes everywhere?"

"I am aware he is in our class. I have not spoken to him."

"Well he is back today, you should eat lunch with us. No reason to eat alone just because Shinji is not here. 'Sides, if he shows up I will introduce him."

"I believe he will return tomorrow."

"Is that all I am going to get?"

Rei did not move her body, but looked at Ken from the corner of her eye. "I believe the captain will be familiarizing him with modern military equipment today."

Ken sighed and reached into his book bag for his laptop.

"Lucky bastard."

* * *

"Rits, that kid is downright scary sometimes." Captain MIsato Katsuragi said as she entered her friend's cluttered office, the heavy scent of cordite following in her wake.

"Why do you say that?" Ritsuko Akagi replied, not looking up from her desktop computer. She was leaning back in her chair, nails tapping away at her keyboard across her lap. Her nose wrinkled for a moment at the sting scent and she had to adjust her glasses.

"Were you even watching?"

"The first couple sessions. I had Maya took notes on the rest. Other stuff to do."

"He'd never even held a gun before today. I've seen guys fresh out of boot camp, shooting five hundred rounds a day getting groups twice the size he was shooting."

"Hmm."

"Hmm? All you have to say is Hmm? Thats nuts! I've never seen anyone pick up any skill that quickly."

"The commander did make a note somewhere to expect him to learn rapidly. I thought it was a misguided assumption about genetic intelligence."

"Did I tell you he memorized a map of the city streets after seeing it once?"

"Hmm, that actually could make sense."

"Whaddya mean?"

Dr. Akagi set her keyboard down and swiveled her chair towards Misato. "Well, from what we know, literacy is not universal nor even considered universally useful where he is from, particularly among the military class. If he has been educated in the kind of system that would exist within those circumstances, then it would unsurprising, even expected that he would have been trained to quickly retain information. He may even have perfect recall."

"Don't you think that is a little bit of a leap?"

"If he had been raised into another occupation, maybe, but military… If a soldier could not read, you could not give him written orders or any sort of manual on his equipment. Even textbooks for learning basic skills. Rote memorization would work but by all indications this is not an unadvanced society he comes from, just limited as to the technology it is allowed to develop. So developing those sorts of teaching techniques would make sense lacking widespread literacy."

"That still has holes in it."

"But it does adequately explain our observations, so I think that makes it a reasonable hypothesis. What he is doing is difficult, but we know it is possible. The takeaway is that we should be careful with what he is exposed to, because it is possible he only needs to see something once or do a thing once before he has learned it."

Several levels below and sections over from the 'firing range', as he had been told it was known, Shinji was standing beneath a hot shower, taking in the steam with deep breaths. Shinji knew, on a level that was becoming instinctual, that the captain was so many levels below where he stood and to his… that took a moment of thought and he stepped to face another side of the room to orient himself… She had said she was going to Dr. Akagi's office and that was approximately on his right from here.

It was this numbering system on the wall panels. At first he had not understood the order, but when he tried to put it into a sort of coordinate system both laterally and vertically it began to make sense. Different parts of the sequence gave one's location along different axis. Small rooms had longer numbers and in fact this is what had given it away. The longer number sequence gave a more precise location.

This was not completely alien to Shinji though. It was similar to a system he had learned when he had travelled once on a merchant vessel with Tarl. The sailing round ship, as opposed to the sleek multi-decked and rowed fighting ships, held cargo and passengers. The location of a given item or cabin was given, like the address on a street and the number sequences on these walls, as a count of beams from a given bulkhead.

Though, he thought, this was more like multiple ships lashed together. Sections of the facility had names and the sequence within each independent from the others. These names were nonsense as far as he could tell, some of the words he knew and others were strange. Pribnow box, Central Dogma, Gracial Nucleus.

Shinji took a deep breath through flared nostrils. That smell was still there. That smell like smoke and rotting eggs. It dulled his senses the way the explosives operating the powerful weapons of Earth had dulled his hearing even with plugs in his ears and covering over that.

Shinji thought he had an inkling now of why such things were not allowed by the Priest-Kings. It was terrifying to think of the carnage these Earthlings must do upon each other. Captain Katsuragi had said the weapons he fired were those of the common soldier, and far deadlier existed that were carried into battle in vehicles and others that are, and this was something of a wonder in his mind, sent into battle on their own without a man to guide them.

They were not weak, these Earthlings. It would be foolish to continue thinking so, as he had been taught to. He was not like them though. He was Gorean. They may be strong at arms here, but they were uncivilized and foolish.

For not the first time, Shinji felt homesick. He had been here only a hand, a week as they would say. He had made friends true enough, and the people had been… he hesitated to think nice, but certainly amenable. Things were so strange here though. Things did not even smell the same, and it was so noisy.

His difficulty with spoken Japanese was annoying, but the written language so vexing him was disheartening. Learning was a simple thing but language, or at least this one, did not come easy to him.

Shinji turned off the water and pushed his memories of home aside, they would do him no good. Instead he focused on the day's training, reliving the sequences in his mind while his feet carried him to his towel.

Ready, safety off, point in, finger on trigger, preeeeeessss do not squeeze, surprise break, stay on target, move, verify target is still viable, preeeeeessss…

What he wouldn't do for a proper bathhouse right now, Shinji thought.

He would dry himself then dress, and then it would be time to go home, eat more of those disgusting rations the captain lived on, and go to bed. Tomorrow he would see his friends again. Lady Rei had been asking many questions of women from his home and she seemed to understand him when he explained, to even be excited.

* * *

After his performance the day before, Captain Katsuragi had finally consented to Shinji walking to school on his own. It was a very welcome privilege. Shinji had found himself missing, of all things, the simple act of walking everywhere he went. It was not something one would think something to miss, but here he was, grateful to be free of the noise and insulation of automobiles. Walking as he was he could hear the sounds of the city waking up, he could smell the varied scents in the air. It was good.

Walking upon the sidewalk and joining with the artery of students moving towards the school reminded him of riding a tarn, which was funny enough to make him chuckle. Once a man had ridden astride the great birds with the reins in his hands, to travel any other way seemed not only low, but confining. Like it made one vulnerable.

Now a child or a woman might ride in a tarn basket, a wicker compartment slung below the great bird. One might even steer with a particular arrangement of reins which might be used from the basket. However that was not the same. These automobiles, it seemed to Shinji, were more like those tarn baskets. He wondered idly if there existed such a vehicle which could give the sense of speed and power that riding upon a tarn would.

As if to answer his thoughts, a truly awful noise echoed down the street and shook his bones. It was like the wail of some demonic beast and hurt his ears. Shinji was shocked that the children around him had not sought shelter as he looked for the source of the obnoxious sound.

It flashed by on the street, a man covered head to toe in black and straddling a mass of twisted metal with a wheel at each end. As soon as it had come it was gone and there was only the echo of its passing and the stink of fuel.

Shinji turned the corner to enter the school grounds. He did not know what that thing was called. He just knew that if anything might give him the thrill of riding the great birds on this world, that might be it. He desired it muchly.

"Oy, you!"

Shinji turned, looking about for whomever made this person yelling so angry. The one who spoke was a large young man, quite a bit broader than Shinji. He was not dressed as the students like himself, so Shinji was unsure if he was indeed one of them. Perhaps the dark clothing he wore was the uniform of a rival academy and he had come to make trouble. Such things would not be too unusual back home. Finding nobody else who appeared to understand whom was being spoken to and finding himself squarely in this man's path, he raised a hand in greeting.

"Pardon, were you speaking to me?"

"Yeah! You're the Evangelion pilot?"

"Aye." Shinji responded, bringing his school bag off his shoulder to let it hang at his side.

The brawny boy rolled up his sleeves and struck his fist into his palm. "Well then I gotta give you a whuppin'."

"Truly?"

Shinji dropped the bag.

"Is there a reason for violence between us?"

"I'll tell ya afterwards if you're still conscious."

The flood of students had ceased and parted for them now, a circle of children standing well back from the two boys.

"Is that so?" Shinji slid his right foot behind his left and lifted it to take a broad step back, bringing his body low to the ground with his arms in front of his body, elbows tucked towards his stomach and his hands flexing slowly. This was a stance suitable for wrestling when unarmed and facing a similarly unarmed opponent. "My name is Shinji, warrior of Ko-Ro-Ba. What is yours?"

"My name is… OOOOOW" He screamed and crumpled to the ground. Shinji had been so focused on his opponent that he had only caught a glimpse of the young girl before she acted, kicking up between his opponent's legs from behind and, Shinji feared, quite crushing his manhood. He had threatened violence, but no man deserved that. She wore a dark beret with her school uniform and her left arm was in a bright pink cast.

"BAKA TOJI!" She screamed, jabbing her toe into his side as he groaned on the concrete.

Shinji stood up straight. "Um, Tal?"

"Oh hi!" The young girl said, waving with her bound arm. "My name is Sakura and this idiot is my big brother Toji. He thought beating you up would make me getting my broken arm better or something. Like I said, he's an idiot."

"Why would assaulting me make your arm heal?"

"Cause I broke it when you were fighting the big ugly monster. Toji said you were the one in the giant robot."

"I am very sorry."

"It's alright. Ya wanna sign my cast?" She asked, her injured arm raised towards him. Shinji could see many marks in black ink already on the wrapping. The other students had moved on now, and there were soon no others outside save himself and the the siblings.

"Er…"

"You're from the homeworld, right?"

"Th...uh... what?"

"You're from Gor. That's what Kenny told Toji."

"Yes. I'm sorry, I did not think anybody else would know of my home as more than a work of fiction."

"Most people don't. We just say we are from Osaka."

Shinji nodded for a moment as the thought worked itself over in his head. Once it fully formed, he audibly gasped.

"You are from Gor? Truly!"

"Well, grandpa is. Papa was born here and nobody has been back since."

"I see, well met." Shinji looked at the older brother, he was starting to get up. "You know Lady Sakura, your brother meant well."

The young girl raised her foot, ready to stomp down on her brother's hand. "He was being an idiot."

Shinji held his hands up plaintively. "Yes yes, YOU can see that. You are truly a woman blessed with insight. Your brother and I though, I think we are cut of the bolt of cloth. We are warriors, and more than other men we are ruled by our passions. Do not judge him too harshly, I beg your favor."

Sakura set her foot down gently, mercifully on the ground and not on her brother's hand. The warning bell was ringing now.

"Oh, crap, gotta run." Sakura prodded Toji with her toe again. "You better not doing anything stupid, or I'm tellin' dad."

Shinji stepped closer to the young man on the ground. He wore very dark blue garments with red and white stripes decorating the sleeves. The man was clearly in great pain, but looked up at him. It was not a look of welcome.

"Ya must find this sort of funny."

"Not at all. Free women will do as they will, and to abuse and demean us is their prerogative. I do not think you deserve what she did, but I thought arguing the point might lead to further injury."

"Uuugh, yeah okay. I'll buy that."

"Is it true what she said?"

"Yeah."

"Are we at peace?"

"Bein' as I don't want to catch my little sister in a bad mood again and I think m'dad would have my ass for this if she told, yeah, we' cool."

Shinji bent down and offered his hand. Toji took the assistance and they stood together. They were of the same height, just above the average of the other students.

"I am Shinji of Ko-Ro-Ba, well met Toji of Tokyo-3. It is good to know there are other…"

"Yeah, would ya mind keepin' that quiet? I mean I appreciate you are out and all, but it wouldn't be good for my family I don't think."

"Not at all." Toji had caught his breath and both boys retrieved their book bags.

"Thanks. We should probably get going in. Ken said you are in our class too." They proceeded at a swift pace towards the school building, side by side.

"2-A, yes. Are you friend's with Kensuke as well?"

"Yeah, have been a long time."

"I have found him a good man in the short time I have known him. Is not he aware of…"

"Nope. Love him like a brother but he couldn't keep that a secret to save his life."

"Noted."

"So, giant robot pilot. How did you swing that gig?"

"A question I would love to be able to answer but unfortunately cannot. Is your sister's injury serious?"

"She'll have the cast for a few more weeks, it was a clean break."

"That is good. If I may ask, of what caste…" Toji looked at him and Shinji remembered what he had said just a moment before. "What is it your family does? Are you warriors?"

"Guess that is supposed to be a compliment comin' from you. I think grandpa did some soldiering but dad works for NERV."

"Really?"

"Yep. Have you noticed pretty much everyone in this town does?"

Shinji felt he understood Toji's motivation for choosing violence. It was on the surface about his sister Sakura, her injury and to a degree her honor. But the young gorean saw how this man looked at him. Toji was interested in finding out who he was. Not his name or his history as such, but his measure.

This Toji Suzuhara was of Gor at least in spirit, Shinji decided. He had chosen combat to judge him, to see if Shinji was the sort of person he could trust the safety of himself and his family too. Shinji just hoped he had impressed with his handling of the younger Suzuhara.

Shinji noticed another thing about Toji. It was the way he and the class representative looked at each other as she scolded him for nearly being late. She put no such words to himself either, only Toji. The class representative was Suzuhara's woman it would seem.

* * *

Rei had started reading as soon as she had returned home after school. She was only distracted by glare on the screen of her school laptop. Which was rather strange at night, she thought, until she realized it was dawn coming through her apartment window.

This was real. This place, these people, they existed.

She was hungry.

Rei rose stiff from her bed. She looked at her right arm and moved her finger, only recently freed from the bandages. The pain was still there, but no more than a dull soreness. She walked in stocking feet on the concrete floor of her studio apartment

Rei had not eaten so she would prepare food, in so far using the microwave was preparation. She had not dressed in clean clothes, or for that matter bathed either. Food for energy would be sufficient to get through the day. She could come home and sleep after classes were finished. Class was not compelling. However, she had more books on her computer now, she could read in class and if she attended she may see him again.

The machine beeped the completion of its cycle and Rei removed the paper cup, carefully peeling back the plastic top.

He was quite compelling. She would bathe before going out. Perhaps he would find that, in his odd manner of speaking, pleasing.

Her night spent reading, and the ones before, had taught her much about what he might find pleasing. These slave women, the Kajira of Gor, were lively and affectionate. They kept themselves to please their owners, their masters who they dare not anger or they would surely suffer.

Rei wished she could be so expressive, so full of joy, of inner beauty… of life. It was not a familiar thing to do, it felt unnatural to even try. It would do no good to stay here and fantasize, but as she sat down on the bed, Rei thought there was no harm in a little day dream. She set her cup of noodles aside. She could still get to school on time if she hurried after resting her eyes for a few moments.

* * *

"Kensuke, my friend, have you seen Lady Rei this day?"

"Huh? No, figured she is off on some pilot thing."

"I know nothing of it if she is."

Kensuke shrugged. "Maybe she's sick then."

It was just after second period and Shinji was concerned for his friend and comrade. Perhaps she was indeed ill, or injured.

"I will go, to confirm she is alright."

"Okay, do you know where she lives?"

"... No. I do not."

"Puts a bit of a damper on that plan, don't it?" Toji said from his desk behind Kensuke's. "I mean you could get it from the office."

"Dude, they aren't just going to give it to him."

"Sure they will. Shinji, all you gotta do is go to the front office and tell'em your class rep asked you to deliver her classwork since she will be out today."

"Toji, I feel somehow that Class Representative Hikari will not like that if it were to come to her attention."

"Dontcha worry about that, I'll handle it." Toji said, waving his hand as if the notion was an annoying insect.

"Thank you my friend." Shinji said, standing up from his seat.

"Dude, where you going?" Kensuke said.

"To the office to obtain the information, then to Lady Rei's residence."

"Okay… uh, bye."

With other kids talking to each other or doing work at their desk, nobody else seemed to notice as Shinji slipped out of the room.

"Dude, Hikari is going to be fuckin' pissed when she finds out he dropped her name."

"Oh yeah she is."

"You going to run interference for him or something?"

"Hell no."

"And to think I used to wonder why she never stopped yelling at you even after ya started dating."

* * *

Finally something sensible with these earthlings, Shinji thought as he left the school's main gate at a loping run. He had done as Toji had suggested and the administrator of the school had given him Lady Rei's address without argument or fuss. It was not far, perhaps a half of an hour at the warrior's pace.

The gorean warrior is trained for two speeds of march. The warrior's pace was the faster and the warrior's stride the slower. Alternating between the two, a group may stave off fatigue and travel ninety pasangs in a day. Alone a fit warrior could do better but that was in the lower gravity of Gor.

Shinji on the other hand was just happy to be able to stretch his legs. He ran in sprints, savoring the strain and the burning of his lungs and the wind on his face. The heavy boots he wore provided excellent grip and he took joy in throwing his weight into sharp corners such that he would have slid in even hobnailed sandals and instead stopping on a hair's breadth.

This was a joy he had not felt since coming to Earth. It was good. At home in Ko-Ro-Ba, he might have slowed for the market crowds but in the middle morning the streets here were all but empty. So he quickened his pace, pushing his legs to their limit in this higher gravity while he occupied his mind, counting time and distance of the regular city blocks to calculate speed.

* * *

 _Rei squealed in pain as the rough hand thrust through the tiny opening of her kennel and grabbed her by the hair, immediately pulling her out and throwing her to the stone floor. She cried out again._

 _"_ _Please stop!" She pleaded. There was a time when she would have hid her pain and denied any outburst. That had been long ago and far away. Here the ability to hide anything had been taken from her, like her clothes and everything else. When she had tried to tell another captive her name, the woman had laughed at her and said she had no name, she was a slave until a master graced her with a name. Then she would be but a slave with a name._

 _"_ _Silence barbarian." The owner of the rough hand, a brute of a man who towered over her. He was stripped to the waist and wore only sandals and a red kilt. The hand which had pulled her from the kennel hung open at his side, the other held a whip she had come to know too well._

 _"_ _Now it is time to learn finally, after we have spent so much time helping UN-learn your foolish notions of femininity on earth." The slave master said, slapping the broad tailed whip into his open hand. "This is Gor, and you will now be taught to be a girl of Gor."_

 _"_ _Now , kneel."_

Rei dropped to the plastic floor of her shower with deep moan that made her throat hurt for a second, the hot water running over her flushed skin. She looked up into the stream and the water over her tired and bloodshot eyes made the world a blur, all the easier to transition back into her own mindspace.

 _"_ _Don't kneel like a free woman."_

 _He kicked her knees apart then took her by the wrists, pushing her hands down palms up on her thighs._

 _"_ _Like that. This is nadu, say it."_

 _"_ _Nadu."_

 _"_ _Look at that, the girl is not stupid. Now, you learn to speak. You are a slave, all men are your masters. You will address them as such."_

* * *

Shinji looked up at the dull concrete and glass tower. It was in poor condition and looked of the same build as the one he had originally been sent to live in, before the captain had taken him in. The doors were unlocked and a quick scan of the entryway showed a guide indicating he needed to reach the fourth floor to find Lady Rei's apartment.

The young warrior did not even try the elevators. He was enjoying his exertion far too much and they looked poorly kept anyway. He took the steps two and three at a time, throwing himself about the turns of the stair well with a jump, hand clamped to the central railing to fling his body in line with the next flight.

The hall was filled with refuse. Some of it was in bags but much of it was simply strewn about. The air had the stink of squalor, but down the hall, Shinji could hear running water. He walked past broken and open doors without concern. What violence and vandalism had happened here was old, beneath generous dust.

* * *

It stung as Rei's shoulders slapped against the wall of her shower. It didn't bother her, it was warm pain. Good pain. Her eyes were tightly shut and and her toes struggled to regain purchase on the slick floor. Her hands were too occupied to help, one digging short nails into her breast and the other buried in the beryl blue hair between her legs.

"Oh… oh master PLEEEEEEEEEEASE…"

Water flowed into her mouth and her hair already stuck to her cheeks.

There was noise… it didn't matter, she was close, soooooo close. He had tamed her, taken here, used her for his pleasure.

"Lady Rei, are you here, are you alright?"

Red eyes flew open and fluttered against the water. It was him!

"Lady Rei… Ah there you are."

Hands away from her own body. To please herself this way would not be allowed. He stood over her, the sunlight through the windows behind him.

"I am sorry to barge in like this, but I was worried, you were not at school."

"S-s-sorry…"

"You do not look so well." He stepped closer, into the bathroom. "Did you fall?..."

"Master, please I did not mean to!"

"Master? Rei… Your eyes are red. Well more than… bloodshot, that is the word, your eyes are bloodshot. Have you slept?"

The way she turned away and cast her gaze down reminded him of a slave girl. Of course it would, she had clearly been fantasizing if she had called him master. But there was something totally alien to a slave as well.

"Lady Rei, I am concerned. Have you slept?"

She shook her head, little more than a twitch side to side. Shinji spun the control knobs, shutting off the water and collecting her towel from a nearby hook before he knelt down beside her.

"I think perhaps then we should get you to bed, yeah? I think you are having delusions."

She nodded just a little, mumbling something that sounded like "Yes'm." With his help she stood and received her towel. It was then Shinji saw what had made her look of deference so unslavelike. She did not seek to cover herself, but the way her eyes avoided his it was clear. She had of her desire what no slave could.

Shame.

"I am sorry." She said quite suddenly.

"There are no apologies between friends."

"You do not mind?"

"I was concerned for you, I came of my own choice. Why should I mind?"

"Oh… Did you know?"

"I did not, but you were not in class, and so…"

"You came to take me?"

Shinji was a smart boy, but he had been raised in a culture which tended to show favor to meatheaded idiots and so only occurred to him then that perhaps he and the Lady Rei were not speaking of the same subject.

"Well… I…"

"I have been reading and I've learned that on your world, if a woman acts a slave towards a man, he may take her as one."

Tarl Cabot has been known to exaggerate in his writings. From the greatness of his own deeds to the willingness and beauty of his partners, to the rather unique customs of Gor in regards to women and the condition of slavery. However this time, Shinji did not mind. In his mind, war horns had sounded, banners had unfurled, commands were being rushed by messengers, birds, all means available. This was a glorious opportunity, take it you fool! Strike now, that your spear may pierce the shield wall, part the flanks, and the prize be yours!

Rei had the towel wrapped about her shoulders. Her pale skin cool in the still air of the small bathroom and her eyes still cast down.

 _You are a man of Gor._

She gasped when he snatched the towel away and tossed it aside, then yelped as his pushed her back, lifting her from her feet as he rushed forward, pinning her body to the wall with his own.

Teenagers they were, eager and awkward. His thigh between hers, pushing her legs apart, her wrists one over the other, held by one hand above her head and the other around her throat as his lips crushed over hers. It was lust, unbridled by the wisdom of age or the strange conventions of Earth. It was a wondrous thing, beautiful, tremendously pure.

And then the sirens began to sound.

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! PROCEED TO YOUR ASSIGNED SHELTERS IMMEDIATELY. I REPEAT, PROCEED TO YOUR ASSIGNED SHELTERS. ANGEL INCOMING! ANGEL INCOMING!


	4. Chapter 4

Tal again everyone. Sorry this one took so long! Please enjoy Rebuild: A Warrior From A (Counter) Earth chapter 4.

* * *

 **Berlin 2003**

Tarl Cabot mused, fully conscious of the irony, that it was like something from a pulpy spy novel.

They met in a park. He was wearing dark aviator sunglasses and a red sport shirt that would be offensively bright if not against the background of the historic district. Her disguise, such that it was, consisted of dark glasses and a grey silk scarf pulled over her head. Her dull blue wool skirt and drab jumper were expected of an academic, but quite unbecoming given her status when they had last met.

"So is there a code phrase I have to give or is it a secret handshake?" He asked, folding his paper.

"Witty as ever, captain."

"Captain? It has been a great while since anybody called me that."

She looked this way and that and, with no one about, leaned towards him and whispered. "Well I'm not going to very well call you master this and master that like I used to, am I?"

The last time Tarl Cabot and Yui Ikari had met, it had been in the pirate haven city of Port Kar, rising from the sea in the delta of the Vosk river which flowed to the sea called Thassa. Then he had been a captain, sitting on the council of men that governed the city. She had been kajira, a glamourous slave girl glad in gold, silk, and jewels, who served at the feet of a reaver feared from the polar fjords of Torvaldsland to the islands so far they were thought myth.

Tarl smiled and rose, extending his broad hand. "It has been a long time, Yui."

"Too long, captain." Yui clasped Tarl's hand between her own and shook it with a small bow before letting go.

They began to walk the path through the park to the street. "I was surprised when I got your letter. I thought you two were living in Japan."

"We are. I knew you might be in Germany and I was going to be here for a conference, so I thought it would be fun to catch up."

They walked together to a nearby cafe. Orders placed and coffee brought, they then continued.

"You look well for being back on Earth all this time."

"Thank you. A woman does not always feel at her best when caring for a toddler."

"Oh yes, I heard. How old is he now, a year and a half?"

"Two."

"Wonderful. Is the little rogue showing any inclination to take after his parents yet?"

"If you mean raising every sort of hell between here and Port Kar and getting away with it, oh yes."

Tarl's lips twitched up into a smile. "I never thought myself the sort for children, but they certainly grow on you. You know, I always thought the same of Gendo."

"That he grows on you?" Yui quipped.

Tarl chuckled. "That he would not desire children. I thought him an outlaw that would never settle down."

"He has taken a liking to peace."

"Even if it is only peace in comparison?"

Yui conceded the point with a nod and a "Yes" that Tarl thought sounded rather exasperated. "It can change people."

"It also makes a different sort of person. We share an experience you and I, growing to adulthood here but only maturing on Gor. We understand how denying certain fundamental truths twists people."

"That is actually what I wished to speak to you about. I… We would like to see Shinji raised traditionally. Perhaps back on Gor, back home."

One copper eyebrow raised above his sunglasses. Tarl had not missed the substitution of the plural for the singular. "That is surprising. I recall Gendo being eager to follow you back to Earth."

"I know, but perhaps time makes memories fonder. I know with… what we did, we are just outlaws."

"No."

"Tarl, I know…"

"I will finish, if the kajira who has forgotten her manners will let me."

Yui very quickly bowed her head. It was reflex from trained deference.

"He was an outlaw, you were and are kajira."

"Yes."

"What was that?"

"Aye, Vana'she."

"Thank you. Continue."

"What I meant was, we don't have caste. Even if we returned we couldn't give him any sort of life for a child. What I truly mean is, if he was to be raised in the traditional way we would like to see him fostered into the high castes. Specifically the warriors."

Tarl said nothing for a moment. He leaned back in his chair and rested his chin on his knuckles, his elbow on the arm of the seat.

"I suppose we have come to the purpose of this meeting. I take it you wish us to foster the boy?"

Yui nodded. Tarl made a slight nod against his fist, his eyes inscrutable behind the dark glasses.

"This is about the project, isn't it?"

"Yes… Has she told you?"

"My companion has told me much." And I will not be expanding further lest you know how much I know, was left unspoken. "I know what is to come. I will soon return to Gor to make preparations and then come back to this world once more to ferry them home, to safety."

"And how is your daughter?"

"Harrowing hell in some kind of pincer movement with your son, so I am told. My visits have been less frequent than I would like. However you are trying to distract from the point."

"Would it be so bad for her to have a brother to grow up with? They seemed to get on well when..." Yui stopped herself when Tarl raised his jaw from his hand and held up a finger for silence.

"I am not going to be stealing Gendo's son, and her living under the same roof as a boy is just asking for trouble. But... this project requires sacrifices from all of us."

"So that our children may have a future."

"If they live that long."

"They will be safer there."

"And you want to put Gendo's son in the agoge?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because anything less and the chances of anyone surviving, here or there, are substantially less."

"Your master doesn't know you are here." Tarl said. It was in that way he so often did, phrasing what should have been a question as fact. She had been found out. What came next would be crucial. Her husband, for Gendo was no longer truly her master, would stop this scheme before it started. She had to convince Tarl Cabot that this was necessary.

"No, he does not."

"Give me a reason not to send you back black and blue."

"Gendo is a good man, who loves me and our son without reservation. However guided by that love he will obstruct cruel things which must take place. Tarl, I have a plan. I know, and I am better equipped to understand than anyone, that it will work but I need your help."

He stared at her for some time. She watched tension pass across his arm and shoulders, how his brow twitched, looked for an indication of his answer. When he did not speak, Yui took off her sunglasses and laid them on the table. She pulled down her scarf. Then she bowed her head, hands resting on her legs, and spoke.

"Please, captain, this girl begs your favor. To listen to what she has to say. If you find her wanting, return her properly corrected, but please just hear her out."

Her head still low, she listened. After a tense moment, she heard him take a sharp breath through his nose.

"Very well." He said. "Speak."

It took twenty minutes for her to explain. Her pitch, as it was, had been carefully practiced. The meal finished as well, they rose from the table. Tarl saw the merit of her words.

* * *

 **Present**

Hikari did not so much sit on the concrete bench as she fell and happened to land comfortably. Almost immediately, she yawned.

"Hey bae."

"Hey." Hikari responded weakly. With her class duties this was their normal routine and it had been nice to have it back along with her boyfriend. Toji would leave for lunch with the rest of the class and stake out their normal spot. She would then catch up once she retrieved her bento or bought something. That had been until the weird new transfer student arrived and brought all sorts of headache inducing chaos with him. Today he was blissfully gone, having ditched class at some point in the morning. Kensuke Aida, Toji's usual accomplice, was also indisposed with some project or other.

"You alright?" Toji asked, his hand already wrapped serpentine around her waist and over her hip.

"Yeah…" Hikari said, slumping against his big shoulders. "Was just up late helping Nozomi with her solar system project."

"How late?"

Hikari didn't answer. Toji cared. The big lug always cared, about everything about her. He was a great boyfriend and he had never been pushy. Even when she had been really sad once and he had cheered her up, and she had been ready to do the deed right there, he had so no. He had said that it would not be right to take advantage of her like that.

He fussed over her it seemed sometimes. Every little bruise or scrape required an explanation, but she understood. He loved her and cared about her enough to want to know.

"Hikari…" Toji asked, both a question and an authoritative command. Despite her reluctance, that voice, that tone which spoke his concern, compelled her to tell the truth. That concern sometimes made her feel bad though. Sometimes she did not want to answer just because she did not want to disappoint him.

"I made her go to bed about midnight so she wouldn't be such a terror in the morning."

"And you?"

"I… stayed up to finish it."

"When did you go to bed?"

HIkari pulled her shoulders forward and bowed her head before answering meekly. "I didn't."

A sharp intake of breath and a slow release. Hikari winced. Despite his size and willingness to come to violence over trivial things like honor and who said what and things like that, Toji had never ever, not once, laid an unwelcome hand on her.

Sometimes when he got like this though, she kinda wished he would. Then it would be over and done. He did not shout, or rant, or do any of those things. If someone didn't know him they might not even realize he was mad. Instead he brooded, and his anger just hung over him like the shadow under a storm.

Most people never saw it but Toji was a deep guy. Her especially never even bothered to look. He thought a lot. When he did anything, he did because he chose to, not because he lost control.

To the outside world, whatever displeasure he had had passed, but she could feel it still.

"She should of had it done a few weeks ago. I remember that project, teach assigns it at the start of term and you get like two months." He finally said..

"I know."

"Did she even start it before last night?"

Hikari shook her head. "Nope."

"She is such a little shit." He said, then his shoulders were rumbling with laughter and that dark cloud was gone. She was laughing too.

"Oh she is, the little monster. Do you know what she said when I asked her why?"

Toji stuck his chopsticks in his lunch and put his hands together, making big eyes at Hikari and cracking a high pitched voice. "But I knew big sis would help me!"

"Exactly! With that cheesy grin and everything!"

They snickered until her stomach rumbled so loudly she put one hand over her belly and the other over her mouth just in case a belch was to follow. Toji looked her up and down. He had not noticed when she sat down and she was hoping he wouldn't.

Hikari kept her hand over her mouth and turned her eyes to the ground. Before, with the thing with Nozomi, he had not been mad at her. Just mad that it happened and she suffered for it.

"What happened to your lunch?"

She groaned behind her hand.

Slowly, softly, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. His hand on her wrist was not uncomfortable, but he was firm when he pulled her hand from her lips.

"I didn't get a chance to make one. By the time I finished her project, I just had enough time to make her's, Kodama's and dad's."

He didn't ask why she did not go buy something. He didn't need to. Neither of them were from rich families.

"Have some of mine. Dad's cooking is better than any of that swill the lunch cart has anyway."

"No no, I'm fine, really…"

"Bae…"

"Toji, no really it's okay…"

"Hikari…" Toji plucked up a piece of salmon from his lunchbox in two fingers. "Eat."

Hikari opened her mouth to respond. She may have even gotten a sound out before there was fish, rice, and her boyfriend's fingers in her mouth. The heat wave through her face made her want to just go hide. It was not that it felt dirty… it felt… good.

"You need to eat. Dad is trying to make me explode with all the food he gives me." He said as he pulled his fingers away and she chewed her food as the color left her face. "So eat or I am going to keep feeding you by hand."

Aaaaaand the flush was back!

She thought about something she would not do.

She absolutely would not do it. That was her solid decision as she swallowed and he lifted the box towards her. That was something just… just unbecoming, especially in public! It was scandalous. That was her opinion on the matter as she pushed his hand away and turned up her nose impishly.

"Come on, eat."

"Make me."

An eyebrow raised. "Excuse me?"

"You do it better." Hikari said and bit her lip with a blush.

Had this been a somewhat saner world, functioning in a reasonable way, these two nice kids might have grown into otherwise productive members of society with an interesting private life and a large collection of exotic leather goods. The sort who say they value 'structure' and 'traditional gender roles'.

As if a reminder that this was not such a world, the sirens began to wail.

This was Tokyo-3 and this was a world in which a mother sending her only son to a savage world to toughen him up seemed reasonable. Sanity had never even heard of the place.

* * *

Makoto Hyuga jammed furiously at his keyboard before pushing off the floor and riding his swivel chair to another console while the MAGI finished compiling the first. Klaxons blared across the command bridge as a dozen holographic screens bathed the floor in rainbow light.

"Damn angels. Sixteen years since impact and now we barely get a week!"

Captain Misato Katsuragi arrived, clipping an earpiece into place.

"Status Report!"

"The MAGI have confirmed the blue pattern and designated it as the 4th angel. Blue pattern is moving overland, approaching the city from the West. At current speed it will reach the first defensive perimeter in fifty five minutes." Maya Ibuki called out.

"Okay, we have time. What's the twenty on the children?"

"Um, about that… They are already in the number thirty seven elevator heading down." Hyuga read off his screen, adjusting his glasses. "That's odd… it's nowhere near the school."

"Don't know, don't care. How long until they get down here?"

"Should be at the ready room in ninety seconds."

"Great. Eva status?"

"One is ready to go, zero won't even be ambulatory for…"

"It's not ready now, I don't care."

In the number thirty seven elevator, Shinji was anxious. The alarm brought them both back from their lust and all of that angry passion had been given over to nerves before the coming battle. While Rei simply stood there, he could not for his life sit still. So he bounced his feet, paced the elevator, wringed his hands, stretches his limbs, anything to occupy his body while his mind raced with excitement, thoughts of glory, and the ugly head of doubt.

Rei watched him, following only with her eyes as he moved in the elevator like an animal in a cage. She had always approached the thought of placing herself in harm's way with detachment. It was as it was, and she was fulfilling her purpose in doing so. He, like everything he did, approached it with passion. His passion and a veritable storm of emotion practically emanated from him. His excitement and fierce anger was on display for any who looked to see.

She found herself… envious. He was the other side of the passion of slaves which she had read about. Which made a certain sense. It must take men like this to arouse such in women. She wondered what his thoughts were that his emotions could be read so clearly.

As the elevator came to a stop and the door opened, Shinji's thoughts were simple and straightforward. He was going to kill that angel. Twice.

Religion was an odd thing for Shinji, as it was for any member of the high castes. However there were traditions. As he followed Rei to the ready room, he traced a circle on his chest and spoke just above a whisper.

"Tar Sardar Gor, lo rastari kiimacus."

"What does that mean?"

Shinji looked up to find the lady's crimson eyes upon him.

"I did not think you would hear."

"What does it mean?"

"It only a thing said before battle."

He made to walk past her, but she caught him by the wrist. Her fingers were small, her grip light, but he stopped.

"Please tell me."

"By the Priest-Kings of Gor, I now make war."

He watched her nod and then, to his surprise, make the circle over her own chest.

"By the Priest-Kings of Gor, I now make war."

Shinji smiled and her hold on his wrist became their hands hands wrapped around each other's. "And so we shall, Lady Rei, and so we shall."

* * *

"Dude come on!" Kensuke yelled over his shoulder.

"Dammit, Kensuke, the shelter is this way!"

"And if I go there, I'm not going to be able to see the fight. Now come on, this is going to be awesome."

It is a fact universally acknowledged that a teenage boy in possession of a stupidly dangerous idea, will always be followed by his otherwise reasonable friend. If for no other reason than when the story of the adventure is told later, someone can verify. Or identify the body.

* * *

Shinji watched the moving images of the angel. Purple with bits of bone sticking out, floating through the air like a leaf on the wind. And that red gem, like the first one.

"Will I be assaulting this foe with a knife as well?" Shinji asked with absolutely no attempt to mask his sarcasm. It was a giant flat slug. Or perhaps it was like a man-o-war, the creatures which sailed on the sea like men with stinging tentacles beneath. Tarl said they had those nasty things on Earth.

"Cut the sass, this is serious." Misato snapped. "You'll have a rifle, just like the one you trained with. The plan is for you take up position and wait until you have a clear shot at the core, here."

The captain pointed towards the red gem on the largest display. "We believe that will immediately kill the angel. You are to engage as far from the city as possible."

At that moment, Rei spoke for the first time since the meeting began. At first her eyes had been on the material, but from the moment he spoke her attention had been on Shinji.

"What shall I do, Captain?"

"Unit 00 is still not mobile, and even if it was, it's not rated for combat yet. You'll be on standby."

"Yes Captain."

* * *

"Dude! There it is!" Kensuke shouted. He and Toji had come around the final hill between them and the angel. It was still at least a couple kilometers distant, but the sheer size of the thing simply awed them both for a moment.

"O-okay. Now we've seen it, so let's GO!"

"No way, it's all the way over there. Nowhere close to us. 'Sides, Shinji will come out in the eva and take it down no problem. He's a gorean warrior, he's got this."

"It's still not safe."

"Man, let me tell you about Gor and what he knows…"

* * *

Shinji relaxed as the not-quite-blood engulfed him and the tingle of static crawled over his body. This was easy now, simple, even comfortable.

Despite how alien the whole situation was, for the first time since he had come to Earth Shinji felt like things were as they should be. Like his mind was right. He was going to go out, kill the enemy, then come back and force the true woman in Lady Rei to yield. This was good, this was right, this was as things should be. As his fingers squeezed the control yokes, another mind was equally pleased with his condition.

In this moment, Shinji was the picture of the gorean warrior. Proud, aggressive, confident and totally sure that whatever he wanted in the world could be found at the tip of his weapon.

 _Perfect…_

* * *

The battle was going…. Poorly.

He had positioned himself exactly as Captain Katsuragi had ordered and had awaited her command before firing. The effect on the angel would charitably be described as annoyance. As if bothered by a fly. And as if bothered by a fly, the beast responded by swatting at the source of irritation.

The swat, with burning whips of light, had ripped the rifle from the eva's hands, his hands, and sent it far afield. That had just been a reaction. When the beast stopped and moved into an upright posture to confront him directly, then things took a turn for the worse.

"Unit One has lost 20% of its exterior armor layer!"

"Pilot status."

"Synchronization is dropping rapidly. The damage is mainly across the arms, so no direct damage to the cockpit. Synchronization has dropped below levels known to cause sympathetic damage."

"What's he doing, is he conscious, what?"

"We just lost comms, I'm sorry captain, we can't reach him! No vitals either!"

Inside the evangelion, Shinji was conscious. Conscious of the fact he was barely deflecting the creatures lightning strike fast blows from his torso. It had burned, at first. He didn't have time to think on the fact it didn't hurt anymore. He didn't have time to think about anything but where the next attack was coming from.

And he most certainly did not have time for doubt. For the idea that this was not difficult because he was doing the impossible, but because he was inadequate to the task. He did not have time for it but yet it made itself known and so the burning tentacle of light made its way through his guard.

The soul within the evangelion raged.

 _Dammit dammit dammit it by the priest kings and all the hells!_

Strong but feminine hands grabbed him by the shoulders, his body slamming against the walls of the entry plug as though shaken with bloody violence.

 _You are a warrior! Face the enemy! Shout your war cry and Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!_

She yelled and she screamed until she was hoarse, or would be if she had a throat. She cursed him, extolled him, probed his mind for any lever she could work to push him, but everywhere there was the inky black cloud of doubt.

Such fools boys could be, and men doubly so! And he was caught between one and the other and all the worse for it.

The final impact came as the giant slammed into the hillside on its back. Shinji coughed and blood bellowed out in a red cloud in the LCL. He croaked out slurred words, his head swimming.

 _What? WHAT?!_

"I go… I go with pride and honor."

 _This is not where you die, warrior! Get up! Fight! Stop this self righteous pity and FIGHT!_

"And may my comrades…"

More funeral rites, pointless to listen further. Think, think, think… Damn the warriors and their word of mouth apprentice and master soldier bullshit. Had she her way she would have memorized all the codes and teachings but her access to his mind did not work that way she needed…

"...Find me worthy, and may songs be sung and…"

Warriors, soldiers… That was it! Comrades, pride, honor, it's all about the group mentality. No matter how skillful and deadly they are, they are meant to work in groups. He needed comrades, friends. With an objective, something to seek out, she dove into his mind, searching… searching… Friends, okay he had made friends. The blue haired wench was no good, no he already had designs on her in other ways, but these boys and one an enclaver, yes they would do nicely. Where were they? If he could be convinced he was fighting for them perhaps.

Her mind expanded, signals reaching out to every sensor and databank within reach. She found them quite a bit closer than she had imagined.

* * *

Kensuke and Toji were watching with held breath when the angel broke the evangelions guard, grabbed the machine, then hurled it like a ragdoll across the valley.

And very much in their direction.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuck…"

"Less cussing more running!" Toji yelled, hand iron clamped around his stunned friend's arm. When Kensuke did not move immediately, Toji growled. With both hands and a clean jerk, he pulled his friend free from the ground and over his shoulder, and then beat dirt across the hillside. He made to move laterally, not up or down. He figured that was the best way to avoid getting squashed by the incoming giant ragdoll.

When it came, the impact shook the earth beneath Toji's feet so strongly that Kensuke fell away from his shoulders and they ended up a tangled pile on the ground. The main body of the eva has missed them, but just barely. On their other side was the the purple arm and ground further down the hillside had sloughed away. They were trapped, and the angel was coming, whips of light tearing through the hills and sending arcs of dirt and ash into the air.

"Shitshitshit…" Toji swore, until there was a tugging at his jacket. This time it was Kensuke who was being sensible. The noise of the impact must have done something to his ears, for he could not hear his friend. But he could see him pointing. He could see the gap formed by the armpit of the evangelion. The machine was not flat on its back, rather its arms had propped it up just slightly, as though a man was laid out in relaxation on the green hill. They could get through there, if they bent over.

In trauma, one's mind often grasps at the odd things. Like just how hot the evangelion was. Even in the scant seconds as they passed between its arm and torso, Toji felt himself sweating. When they straightened up, his spirits fell. The evangelion's head was on the right side and the sleek black blade that rose from its shoulder on the left. Further up the hillside was too steep to climb. They both turned back and saw the angel, floating ever closer with tendrils raised and ready to deliver the final blow… and taking them too.

"Well, we're gonna die." Toji could hear Kensuke saying, as if on the other end of a long hallway.

"Yep." While Toji could hear himself clearly, it seemed his friend would also spend his final moments half deaf as he was yelling back.

"What?"

"I said there is something I want to tell you." Toji said, raising his voice but keeping himself facing the angel. Better to go that way than with your back to death.

"Better make it quick!"

"Kensuke, my…"

The ground shook once more as the purple giant stirred and the boys fought for footing while the earth shifted beneath their feet. The black pylons rose from their self dug ditches as the evangelion brought its back fully out of the earth, panels shifting along its shoulder blades until the white entry plug emerged. The hatch opened, the amber LCL flowed out.

"Shinji?"

"IN!"

* * *

"The hell is he doing?..."

"Who are they? Get me facial rec… wait I sec, I recognize the one with the glasses. Kensuke something or other, one of the kid's classmates."

"What are they doing here?"

"It doesn't matter. Do we have comms back?"

"No captain."

"Well shit, looks like we are going to have ask later." Misato said, eyes back on the cluster of views from fixed cameras and aircraft. 'If we survive' was left unsaid.

* * *

The hatch slammed shut, the darkness made even more disorienting as the plug slammed home and the evangelion began to rise, LCL flowing back in.

"Uh, Shinji, there is uh, water in here 'cept it doesn't smell like water." Toji said, sniffing. "Is that blood?!"

"Dude dude dude, it's cool, he told me about this stuff." Kensuke said as the LCL reached their legs. "We can breath it like air."

"What?!" Toji felt around until he found Shinji's arm. At least he figured it wasn't Kensuke's since it was covered in rubber. They had not gotten a real good look inside before the hatch closed. "Shinji, whats going on? Shinji!"

Toji shook his friend but with no result, he was stiff and silent. Toji felt a crawl of static across his body as the LCL rose and suddenly there was light. The outside world was all around him, from the viewpoint of a giant, and still approaching with the great worm, anxious whips circling.

 _Toji Suzuhara…_

The outside world stopped, while warm hands cradled Toji's face.

 _You are the heir to greatness. Would you content yourself with the plain and boring life this world will offer you, with normalcy? Your inheritance, your birthright, is power. Take what you want…._

Images of Hikari flashed through his mind. She was staring up at him, wanton, needful, bare to the world and reaching to him. Then hands pulled her away, covering her, concealing her.

 _Do what you will! Reject that any can stop you and you will stand above these lesser people._

Toji tore through the coverings and threw aside the guarding hands. He grabbed Hikari, **His** Hikari, by the hair and lifted her lips to his, his teeth biting down on her lip as her body wrapped around his.

 _It will be yours._

Now Toji was again faced with the angel.

 _If you fight. What will you do?_

"I will fight."

At the same time, Unit One's attention was also on the other boy.

 _Kensuke Aida._

"I'm gonna die. Fuck fuck fuck, I am going to die."

 _Only if you choose to, only if you allow it._

"I think the angel has kind of made the decision for me."

 _What you see is no more dangerous than a human who has made a choice. You have a choice to make. To be plain, boring, weak, ineffectual, impotent…_

"I get the message."

 _Or…_

Kensuke's mind swam with visions. Strength, victory in battle, hardship and fortune. His will forced upon the world, his will commanding, his will as master. Weapons, women, whatever he desired was his to take at the tip of his blade.

 _So what will you do?_

Kensuke felt gentle hands caress his face, nimble fingers lifting his glasses away from his eyes.

"I will fight."

That done, she turned her attention back to Shinji. She had been holding him, cutting him off from the world until everything was ready. Prepared, she released her grip, gently stroking his mind back to full consciousness. This environment would leave no room for his doubt. She showed him visions of his wench, not as she was now, but when she would truly be his. She showed him himself, covered in the blood of his enemies and shouting victory at the sky. His mind was awash in the warrior's will to power, reinforced by the two likewise hopped up young men beside him and feeding back into them in turn.

Just one final step.

She let go of them all, to give them a single space in which to think. And the result was beautiful.

Down in the geofront, there was great excitement as well though the reaction was somewhat less ecstatic.

"Captain!" Lt. Ibuki called out. "We have transmission from unit one, comms are back up."

The image of the entry plug interior which opened to occupy much of the bridge display was not entirely surprising. They had all seen the other two boys enter after all. The audio was a great deal more astonishing. Three voices spoke as one, like a demon with legion voices.

" ** _This land will be your grave!_** "

The occupants of the bridge watched the evangelion rise to its full height. Enormous feet dug into the ground and titanic muscles clenched like catapult ropes drawn tight. The immediate area around the giant waved and flicked, the sheer heat generated by the machine cooking the air around it.

"Synchronization data is coming through… Captain, synch is at 300%!" Maya said, eyes locked on her console. "Brain noise is minimal, the wave pattern is almost identical across all three pilots."

Dr. Akagi was at her shoulder, reading, verifying. "Something is wrong, that shouldn't be possible. Make sure we are recording this, we never tried three pilots at once, had enough trouble getting the damn things to move with just one."

Misato Katsuragi was not issuing orders nor watching data come in. She was transfixed by the largest monitor in the room, watching the battle. There were no commands to be given. This wasn't war, this was not even a fight. It looked like nothing more than an animal being put down. A decidedly one sided affair at that.

* * *

The angel Shamshel lashed out with both appendages. This would end the resistance and allow it to fulfill its life defining goal.

Then the demonic opponent caught its arms.

That took a moment to process. The lilim shaped enemy held a tentacle in each of its shining fists, its arms raised above its head. Those hands should be not but ash. It should be writhing in pain, burning down to cinders. Not standing defiant, crushing the light of Shamshel's soul with its own.

Shamshel willed the whips of light to withdraw, but all of its strength did not loosen the grasp of its enemy. Its struggle increased, to no avail, and it did not comprehend vibrations through air that the lowly lilim used to communicate.

" ** _Your kind comes here seeking to kill us, to hunt us? Just who the hell do you think we are?"_**

And then the world began to move.

Unit One pulled and spun, slamming the angel like a hammer throw into the hillside where it had lain a minute before. With a hunter's shout, the evangelion let go of the burning tentacles and lunged, landing with knees driving into the angel's body. Whips of light lashed at the machine, tearing armor from grey flesh with no reaction.

" ** _Pain? You seek to drive us back with pain! We are not beasts!_** "

Orange light shined about Unit One's hands and they thrust down to the angel's abdomen, towards the ruby core. Bony fingers sought to block them and were snapped to stumps or torn straight from the flesh in return.

" ** _Animals and slaves are coerced by pain! We are neither, we are men, we are not your prey, monster!_** "

Shamshel was not human. That was a path which it had rejected and so taken its current shape. In pain it lashed out blindly, not caring where its blows fell, only that they harmed the demon straddling its body.

There was little armor left across the arms and shoulder of the evangelion, the shoulder pylons themselves little more than snapped blades upon rings encircling the joints. Even the helmet had been cracked and torn away, leaving a rictus grin bare to the world and green eyes to serve as the face of death to the angel. The brown grey flesh smoked under the angel's barrage, but for every blow that landed, the flesh knitted itself back together and black char dissolved until it was if nothing had happened.

Finally roused to action by the attacks, Unit One did not grab the core. Instead one hand took hold of each of the short, rigid arms from the flailing limbs grew. Then the evangelion began to pull. In opposite directions, engaging the muscles across its chest and back.

" ** _We are not the hunted._** "

The angel's entire body began to convulse beneath the evangelion, but the giant was not deterred. It threw back its head and it mouth opened, shrieking its war cry to the sky and lifting its arms in triumph. Held in each hand were the arms of Shamshel, blood spraying onto the eva's grey-brown flesh from above and below, painting it in warrior's crimson.

" ** _We are the hunters!_** "

The angel disarmed, there was nothing between Unit One and the final work. Blood soaked fingers took hold of the red gem core and began to pull. When vital fluids and viscera prevented a sufficient grip to extract the core, the eva began to push instead. Those same muscles that had torn the angel limb from limb brought giant hands together around the core. The worm flailed in futility. Light pulsed from the core, blood covered the valley, and above it all was the fleshless smile of Unit One.

The core began to crack, and its light dimmed as the angel made its first and last sound.

Shamshel screamed.

* * *

"Blue… b-b-b-blue…" Maya Ibuki could not finish the terminal statement. She had just enough time to pull the small waste basket from beneath her console before she wretched into it, quickly emptying her stomach.

"Blue pattern terminated, captain." Lt. Aoba finished. When there was no reply, he turned in his seat "Captain?"

It took the second 'captain' to rouse Misato. She had been staring at the image from the camera some hills away from the fight. The evangelion had shut down, left in a pose as if throttling a straddled victim beneath it. It's bare teeth gave it a creepy, manic smile.

"Recovery… get the recovery teams out."

"Ma'am." Makoto Hyuga also turned to face her. "With the shoulder pylons that damaged, we won't be able to bring Unit One down the railway."

"Right… Get the uh, the…"

"The helos with the clamps to remove the entry plug, will do." Hyuga finished her sentence and turned back to his console. Misato looked to the height of the bridge. The commander had been silent through the battle, as was his want. Misato saw only his back now as he left the bridge, the vice commander close behind.

It took half an hour for the NERV heavy lift helicopters, old style sikorsky's better suited for the precision lift to remove the plug than the ubiquitous VTOLs, to remove the entry plug from the EVA. Setting it down _geeeeently_ was another matter still. All in all it was a fifty minutes from the end of the battle until Misato stood in front of the hatch as crews worked the emergency release. The landing site, such that it was, was land cleared by excavator on the same hillside upon which the evangelion had been thrown. A trench had been dug to cradle the plug so it would not role as weight shifted within.

And just in case the emergency ejection rockets fired, which would only drive it into the soft dirt of the hakone hills. Can never be too careful around solid fuel boosters.

However the time had given the pod time to cool, and the hatch was opened quickly with bare hands. The boys' vital signs had been just fine before communication was lost and Misato expected the two boys had calmed down from whatever hysteria had gripped them and Shinji would be shooing the civilians out or boasting of his deeds.

Things were not as expected.

No sooner had the metal seam parted than Misato and all around were assaulted with a stream of of the most vulgar English, Japanese, and what was assumed to be particularly descriptive Gorean, profanity. The LCL flowed out and all three boys, still thoroughly soaked, emerged pushing past the rescue crews and each other. All stood back and watched the three, apparently engaged in a multilingual free for all of an argument. The most curious part was who was speaking what.

Shinji could barely say hello in Japanese, yet was making great use of it beside his Gorean and british accented English. Likewise both of his friends, though given the heated nature of the discussion that term may not be as applicable anymore, were freely slipping into the alien language alongside Japanese and English.

"Okay boys…" Misato tried, hands raised for quiet. If any of the three noticed her, they paid no mind. Right now both Shinji and the freckled one, Kensuke she remembered, were screaming just inches from the jock's face. While the jock yelled at Kensuke Just as quickly, Kensuke switched his attention to Shinji while the tall one kept on him.

"Boys…"

And now they were both on Kensuke, ignoring her.

"SHUT UP!"

All three stopped, frozen looking at her. The surrounding staff swore they saw trees move and the puddle of LCL ripple when she spoke. When the story was retold later, the multi-ton entry plug may have moved beneath her fury.

"I don't care what you are fighting about, and I don't want to hear it!" She said, knife hand raised and nearly poking them each in the nose in turn, punctuating her speech as she continued with a fed up mother's zeal. "You are all going to shut up and do what you're told. I will listen to what you have to say when I am good and ready. Do you understand? No no no no, don't talk! Do. Not. Talk. Just nod."

All three boys nodded, in rather disconcerting unison. Misato's thoughts were 'god that is weird' but her face did not show it.

"Good, now everyone in the trucks, go!" She said and the marched the boys to the waiting vehicles, directing them with slaps on the shoulders. "No way are you all going in one. Shinji, you go in that one. Aida, there. You…"

Misato pointed at the jock in the tracksuit as the other two were 'escorted' to their transports by section two men.

"What's your name kid?

"It wasn't my-"

"Ah ah ah. Only your name, because I swear to god you will wish that angel got you if you try and drag me into your little hen fight."

"Toji. Toji Suzuhara… Ma'am."

"Damn straight. Get in the truck."

* * *

"Okay Mr. Suzuhara. Tell me what happened." Maya Ibuki had her laptop out across the interrogation room table from Toji. She had chosen him to interview first. As soon as the boys had been brought into custody, staff had started to report very strange behavior. The others were in separate rooms.

"Okay, so my friend Kensuke right, he's a good kid, it's just he gets these ideas sometimes. I mean honest ma'am, he's a good kid, we didn't mean any harm..." Toji began.

 _"_ _So I was like 'DUDE, we got to see this' and he was all like 'naw man it's too dangerous' and I was like naw I got this." Kensuke said., rising out of his chair in excitement as he spoke._

"We were just looking." Toji continued. "Anyway, so the _kaiju_ shows up and to get to what you are probably really interested in, we ended up in the tube with Shinji."

"Right." Maya said. "Tell me what happened after that."

"It's hard to explain."

 _"_ _Dude, it was awesome! You know I used to need glasses? My mind was expanded, I knew things, I had these memories and everything just all fell into place. Like in highschool you don't really know what to do with your life and it's all so big and mixed up and unknown then BAM!" Kensuke slammed his hand down on the metal table. "I know stuff! Well I knew stuff, some of it's kind of slipping away now…"_

"It felt like we were inside each other's heads. No barriers, just pure emotion and information... And no secrets." Toji said. "Anyway, next thing I wanted was to just fight and kill the big ugly. That's all still kind a blur but after it was done the lights went out and… yeah. We got to talking."

"And this is where the argument began?"

"Yeah."

"What was it all about?"

"It's personal."

 _"_ _That motherfucker, that's what! I've known him since… since…. Since a really long time, okay? All that time and he doesn't trust me! But Shinji shows up and he tells him his big secret after five minutes! Can you believe that?... Huh? No I'm not gonna tell you!"_

Maya Ibuki let out a heavy sigh

 _Several frustrating hours later…_

"Rits, tell me something good."

"I have a good theory on what happened to the third child and the other two boys."

"Excellent."

"And it is terrifying."

"I said something good!"

Doctor Ritsuko Akagi rolled her eyes, pulling up wave graphs on her terminal. "Our theory right now is that the evangelion served as a medium to synchronize their neural patterns. You can see here here and here…"

Ritsuko pointed to a single chart with three overlapping lines, labeled subject one, two, and three, Misato looking over her shoulder. "Are scans we have taken since we took them into custody. They all share some basic similarities, but each are distinct. Understand?"

"So far."

"Now this is the information we got from the unit one while we had communications during the battle." Three new charts each one with an identical line merged into a single graph. "They were in absolute synch. That doesn't happen naturally, it's not possible."

"Okay, why is that bad?"

"Well Misato, here's the thing. You reported Shinji speaking Japanese fluently?"

"Yeah."

"The other two have been slipping in and out of his language, they were speaking Gorean. My theory is that for the duration of that battle, while synched up, they shared minds. Memories, thoughts, everything."

"Kay…"

"Misato, that means they know everything the third child knows. You thought he couldn't be a worse security problem? Guess what, those two kids know about our capabilities, our access protocols, everything."

"And about a whole 'nother another planet, full of assholes." Misato said, slapping her forehead as the door to Dr. Akagi's office slid open. "Damn It!"

There was a yelp from the door and both women turned to see Maya Ibuki, holding her closed laptop up defensively.

"Maya, report."

"Oh, uh, yes Ma'am. I have several pieces of news, both good and bad."

Ritsuko rolled her eyes and set her chin on her palm, her elbow on the desk. "Let's hear the bad then."

"I haven't interviewed Shinji yet, Kensuke Aida is still way off his personality profile, we have no idea why his vision has corrected, and I still don't know the specifics of what they were arguing about. Or exactly what happened besides both boys describing it as a mind altering experience in which they shared memories."

"I have a theory. What's the good news?"

"Well neither of them mentioned lawsuits." Two cocked eyebrows and utter silence greeted Maya's rather ill-advised 'joke'. "Uh, right. So neither of them have any sign of physical injury, Mr. Aida now has twenty-ten vision, and both have reported starting to forget details they became aware of during the experience. Given it has only been a few hours, so long as they don't go posting on the internet our security risk will probably be over soon. Also I do have a general idea about why they were arguing."

"Let's keep them confined until tomorrow, alert their fathers. Go see the pilot then interface with the recovery crews. They should have their preliminary damage assessment done by then."

"Yes senpai." Maya said then, with a short bow, heading out the door again.

"And Maya." Dr. Akagi said. Lt. Ibuki stopped mid stride. "Good job."

"T-thank you." The pixie haired girl said before disappearing down the hall. Once she had gone, Misato gave her friend a rather pointed look.

"What?"

"You know how she feels. It's not nice to string her along."

Waving the sentiment off, Ritsuko took her pack of cigarettes from her lab coat pocket, slapped it twice against her palm and drew one. "Its schoolgirl stuff. She'll get over it when she finds a guy."

"She's 26."

"Some take longer to grow up, Misato. Look at you."

Ritsuko was intent now on her terminal screen and did not even raise her gaze to Misato as she walked out.

* * *

"Lady Maya, my friend. Tal and welcome. I apologize that my sitting room is less than comfortable." Shinji said, waving around the concrete walls of the interrogation room. The steel table in the center of the room held a styrofoam serving trail, bare but for crumbs, and several paper cups. "How are you?"

"Tal, Shinji. Did you get enough to eat?" Maya replied, closing the heavy door behind her.

"There is always more to eat, but I do not suffer hunger nor feel faint." Shinji said, stacking the cups together and putting them upon the tray. He slid it out of the way as Maya moved towards the seat across from his own.

Since his arrival, Shinji had given more concern to food than in a great while. It was abundant here and he could have it whenever he liked. He had even been informed that if he wished to eat while attending classes it would be allowed. It was something to do with the heavy gravity of this world, or so he had surmised. His body was used to Gor, which held a less firm hold on its inhabitants than Earth.

Whatever the cause he hungered far more than ever before and when deprived of food quickly began to feel ill. Once he had been placed in the small stone cell food and drink, water fortified with some potion called lizard aid or something, were quickly brought and swiftly replaced as he finished.

"Well don't worry, we will have you out of here as soon as we get done with this. I just need to debrief you. Ask what happened, any information you may have, that sort of thing." Maya took her seat and began to arrange her things.

"Very well. I suppose that you have all the information you need as to the battle itself and that this is about the aftermath."

"Yes and no. Shinji, something very strange happened once your friends entered the cockpit. Our sensors, those are machines which watch what goes on inside the cockpit, cannot give us a full picture of what occurred. I was hoping that you could help tell the rest of the story."

Shinji nodded. "Have you spoken to Toji and Kensuke yet?"

"I have, but they seemed half confused and half reluctant to talk. I hope that maybe since you have experienced what it is like to use the Evangelion before, you could give a better explanation."

"Perhaps. It was a quite amazing experience and I admit some reluctance to tell it, for I fear you might think me quite mad after I do."

Maya smiled. "Well, what your friend's said was fairly similar between them, so if you say you felt like your all shared one mind, I won't be surprised."

"Oh, well then. Yes it happened. It was quite fascinating."

"How so? Or rather I imagine it was, but I want to know why you found it so, Shinji."

"In the instant after the angel died, before the plug went dark, we had between us a moment of complete clarity. I grew up on Earth twice, I experienced the frustrations and wonder of childhood again, it was all quite nice. I think I learned Japanese as well." Shinji changed to his third, or perhaps it is his first, language. "Am I sufficiently understandable, Maya-san?"

"Oh quite, but your accent is certainly interesting." She responded, also in Japanese.

"Ah, and I can understand you perfectly as well. I shall-... What is the word, experiment I think. I shall experiment, to see if I may read and write as well. It is certainly an interesting language, however I feel lie I have already lost the some of the insight I gained. So perhaps it will fade in time."

"Right. Back to the subject at hand, both Mr. Aida and Mr. Suzuhara have been heard speaking your language, so did…"

"Oh yes! That was perhaps the most wonderful part. I could sense their emotions as they watched my life. I was a little disappointed by what I felt, but I understand they would not share the same… Oh bother what is the word. It is love for experience, love of living in the most full way. I think that they found that perhaps a bit overwhelming and extreme. I understand now, to a much greater extent, what Tarl taught me of the cold machine lives of Earthlings. No offense intended of course."

"I'm not sure I'm offended, but could you explain that? What do you mean by machine lives?"

"When Tarl began to teach me about the society of Earth, he began by explaining the complex machine. Interlocking assemblies and components consisting of the same, and so on scaled to greater or lesser size. The societies of Earth are not dissimilar, except that instead of cogs and bearings, they are made up of people. Like those cogs and bearings however, these people are made, that is raised and educated, to be interchangeable and disposable. When a cog is ground down beyond usefulness, it is discarded and replaced. The machine was made with the intent of helping people, freeing them somehow, but instead they are chained to it and its only function is to grind every shred of humanity from them.

"I, um, apologize if that was offensive. As I said, it is what I was taught. I would not say that I have seen it exactly that way since I came here. However from what I saw in their minds, I understand what Tarl means."

"Can you elaborate?"

"Certainly. My friends, they were raised without challenge or hardship. Even if they failed, there was little consequence. They both resented it muchly in fact, but after a time simply came to accept it as inevitable. They were made to feel that they were wrong for the normal desire of agency and excellence, for possessing the will to power."

"So you think that our lives are too easy?"

"No no no, I'm sorry." Shinji said, quickly waving his arms defensively with open palms towards Maya. It was a very familiar, that is to say Japanese, gesture and did not go unnoticed by Maya. "These are familiar concepts which I am trying to express with words with which I have never described them before, you see. Forgive me if I make mistakes or speak in error."

"Okay. Well, say what comes to you and maybe I can help you figure it out."

"My thanks." Shinji took a breath then placed his elbows on the tabletop before setting his jaw across the knuckles of his fist. He sat like that for a moment, slowly breathing and his eyes shut. Once ready, he opened his eyes and began to speak. Maya noticed he was not looking at her so much as staring off in her direction.

"There is a saying, a quotation really, that is well known among my people. Tarl told me a similar story is known on Earth. In this fable, a boy is raised by his mother, alone in a deep cave within the forest. He has looked upon the world outside but never ventured too close to the opening of the cave, for his mother told him there was nought by danger out there. Sometimes, he and his mother would steal away to the deeper parts as men came. His mother said they were fearsome men, warriors who would take them away. The boy observed them only by their shadows upon the wall of the cave."

"Okay, so what happens?"

"One day the boy leaves the cave. He finds himself upon a cliff, looking out at a great valley, and in the distance a great city. The air pure, and the world beautiful. When he looks back at his mother, beckoning him to return to the darkness, he realizes how foolish it is that she taught him the world was to be feared. Surely there will be things which are dangerous and there are great unknowns, but before such beauty the risks are nothing. What he tells his mother in that time is what I am trying to say about the lives of my friends as opposed to my own."

"And what is that?"

"Is it not safer to cower in the caves of lies than to stand upon the cliffs of truth, surveying the world? Yet when one stands in the sunlight, and feels the winds of reality, how dank and shameful seem the dark shelters of falsehood, and how foolish it seems then to have once feared daylight and fresh air." Shinji said, then breathed out a happy sigh.

"You see my lady, to my people the world as my friends have been taught of it would be the cave. Reality is what they see of the shadows dancing on the wall. By seeing my world through my own eyes, I think they have glimpsed the sunlight. While it might be seen with Toji clearly, I think it would surprise most to know that deep down, Kensuke is truly of the warriors. His admiration and play is childish perhaps, but only because he has not been able to be as he is meant to be. I do not think there is a place for the warriors in this world the people of Earth have built, and I think it is lesser for it."

"Oh… But I mean we have warriors. We are all soldiers here…"

"Soldiers perhaps. But any man might become skilled at arms, he may bare weapons and he may even wear the crimson and iron helm of the red caste but this does not make him a warrior, Lady Maya. They are not truly needful. There is quality which I personally believe one is born to, and if I must say something of what this world lacks it is that it does not breed such men as my world does."

"So you don't think there are people on Earth are… strong enough? That we have been made weak?"

"Not exactly know, but something like it."

"I think if I told you about how things were not so long ago, about my own life, it would change your point of view. Do you mind?"

"Of course not, M'lady."

"Very well. What do you know about Second Impact?"

"A great calamity which affected the entire planet when the southern ice cap melted, raising sea levels and throwing your climate into chaos. Many died."

"Half the world died. Three billion people. I was nine years old when it happened, Shinji. They didn't die for a cause, or because some social machine discarded them. Being stronger, or better, or richer wouldn't have helped. It's everyone you have ever known, and everyone they have ever known, and them and them and them after that. Your friends were too young to remember that, but I do. Tarl might've had a point in the mid 20th, I don't know, I wasn't there. Here though, only the very young have the privilege of growing up without hardship. So what you saw is not representative."

Shinji thought on this for a moment, then nodded. "Would you tell me more of those times?"

"Pardon?"

"I wish to know more of those times, of your experience. I would propose that we enter into the evangelion together, however I doubt such a phenomenon could be repeated on command. Because if you saw my world, I think you would not find it as alien as you might think."

"And why do you say that?"

"Because anyone who might survive such a thing as you did, a little girl no less, and remain so cheerful and bright, that is a woman who would be at home in my city."

"Oh I don't know about that..."

"No no no… M'lady Maya I know your picture of my people is incomplete, I beg your favor to allow me to explain. That you will speak of these things without boasting, without asking for sympathy or pity, this would endear you among us. Such a strong woman is to be admired muchly."

Maya squirmed in her chair, blushing. "I'm not strong."

"Certainly you are. But we have digressed very much."

"Yes, yes we have." She said, flipping through her notes and relieved to be done with the topic. "Can you maybe tell me what that argument was all about when you exited the entry plug?"

"I suppose that was the question we originally started with, is it not? Very well. Toji concealed a knowledge from Kensuke but had informed me after we only just met. He did not think Kensuke, his longtime friend, trustworthy to keep the knowledge secret." Shinji took a deep breath, the memory of the exchange visibly bothering him as nerves twitched down the side of his face. "In our exchange, Kensuke found this out. Despite being his friend, both Toji and myself were guilty of lying to him."

"That sounds like it could become nasty rather quick."

"Indeed."

"If you don't mind me asking, what was the knowledge?"

"Lady Maya, I mean no disrespect however it is secret for a reason. Were it known it might endanger Toji and his family."

"Oh. Alright then."

"Forgive me my lady, but I am tired. Are we finished?"

Lt. Ibuki was true to her word and not two minutes later, Shinji left the little concrete room and stepped out into the hall, Maya having already made her way out. Turning towards the elevator, he found himself face to face one Rei Ayanami. She was looking, if he was to be honest, rather frustrated. She was also still in her plugsuit, a sight that despite the garments more annoying properties very well redeemed it in Shinji's eyes.

"Lady Rei, tal."

"Ikari."

"Shinji, please."

"I should like to continue what we were about before the angel arrived."

"I would like nothing more, but I beg your favor to not take offense, but am I tired and in very much need of a bath."

Rei blinked. She examined him with her eyes, from his LCL encrusted hair to his feet, much of the plug suit still bearing the sheen of the fluid.

"I will accompany you to the locker room. If physical activity is beyond you, I would still like to speak to you."

"By all means."

Rei turned smartly on her heel and Shinji could not help but notice a certain tension in her walk. It was pleasing and though her stride was quite a stride to behold, he took a long step to walk beside her. They were alone and the hallway silent, so when she did not speak, Shinji chose to.

"I find Lt. Ibuki to be quite interesting. She is friendly, but our speaking as we did just now revealed a surprising depth of strength."

"How so?" Rei asked.

And so Shinji related the conversation to Rei, coming to point which followed Maya's relating her experience of growing up amid the aftermath of disaster.

"I have a question."

"You need but ask, m'lady."

They were in the elevator now. Leaning against the handrail, Shinji only now noticed he was tracking LCL still. The foot shaped puddle glared beneath the buzzing white lights of the cab, and that is where his heavy lidded gaze rested.

"You said that to have and be able to use weapons and to wear red and an iron helmet does not make one a warrior. That these things were not needed."

"Indeed. Any man might have those things, he may be strong and brave, but that does not make him of the warrior caste."

"What does?"

"Pardon?"

"What does make a warrior?"

"His codes of course."

"What are the codes?"

"They are many and varied. You fight as a warrior, were you not taught codes that you should honor?"

"I have been given instructions."

"That is not the same. What are your principals?"

"I… I will do whatever is necessary to complete my task."

"Admirable, but not fully similar."

They did not continue for several minutes. There was only the machine noise of the cars and the insectoid buzzing of the lights.

Rei broke the silence. "Ikari…"

"Shinji."

"Shinji... Aida directed me towards literature about your home. My observations of yourself and of this literature have fascinated me."

"So I gathered."

"I find what I have seen… admirable." She said, pronouncing the final world unlike a naval rank and rather that this was a thing she was _able_ to _admire_.

"My thanks."

"If I am to fight, I should then be a warrior?"

"That is the duty of the crimson caste. Men are warriors though, women may be of the warriors but they do not take up the profession itself."

"Oh."

"On Gor that is the way of things anyhow. To judge by Captain Katsuragi however, it would seem the warrior women of Earth well hold the title."

"I want to be more like you."

Shinji's head came up and turned to Rei cocked sideways. Her eyes were away and to the side. One arm was across her chest, beneath her bust, gripping the elbow of the other nervously. "A warrior, you mean?"

No. She lacked his passion to act on her feelings. She wanted that passion, to be able to act on emotions and desire. She had glimpsed it before the angel arrived. She had touched it and it had filled her with happiness and a burning need for more. Yes, burning was a good word. Rei did not love herself, but this man had sparked the smallest of fires within her. She would gladly throw her old ways and thoughts on the pyre to have what she saw in him and read about in Aida's books.

"Yes."

"That is a great thing, Lady Rei. I do not think myself educated enough about Earth or the Evangelion to provide instruction, but you lack for codes. This I can teach you."

"And…" She started, a flush coming to her lily cheeks. She could feel the heat within her skin, but Shinji's mind was not hers to read. Were it though, how pretty her eyes were against her flushed skin would have been what she saw.

"Yes, Lady Rei, what is it?"

"If there are other things I wish to learn… I mean, of a certain nature. Like before…" She spoke slowly, a difficulty articulating her unfamiliar thoughts abundantly clear. At this he chuckled. Her heart sank. Did he find her an object to deride?

"M'lady, I am no fool. I enjoyed our encounter earlier and I am being completely honest when I say that were I sure I was able to do so, I would suggest continuing in the nearest dark corner. You are very beautiful, and I do desire you muchly so be assured of that. I am also exhausted, my belly is full, and I fear that were I to find myself in a suitable place to continue it would also be a suitable place to sleep and sleep I would."

Rei's flush rapidly become several shades deeper and while her mouth worked up and down, coherent sound did not emerge, nor did her gaze turn upon Shinji.

"As well, there is no need to be so circumspect about the topic. My people are very open on the subject." He said with a laugh in his voice. "So ask anything you like, Lady Rei. I promise I will always answer.

He had thought her tense before but now her whole body was as stiff as an iron bound mast. Even the muscles of her face were clenched and her response was delivered in a squeaky whisper and a tiny nod.

"Ok."

How strange these Earthlings were about the most natural thing beneath the sky. Shinji wondered what nonsense could make a beautiful girl so wary she could hardly speak of the subject.

"Lady Rei, would you like to discuss something else now?"

Another small nod, lips still pressed together and line of sight glued to the corner furthest away from his face and her cheeks still shining pink. "Mmhm." She hummed.

"I may speak to you of the codes if you like. I think it may also allow me to hold on to consciousness."

"Ok."

"Very well. The civilized people of Gor share a system of castes. Each caste has its duties and its members are fiercely proud of their profession and their honor rests upon their tasks"

Honor. This was the word that came up most when he spoke of the codes. A nebulous idea, but vitally important. She asked why.

"Honor, Lady Rei, is so valuable, especially to the warriors, that a man who is good and true would not trade it for the greatest riches. Before honor, all the gold and jewels of the world are not but tawdry decoration. A man who has nothing but his honor is great, but a man without it may have all there is and ever will be before him and be destitute."

The car came to a stop and Rei walked behind Shinji, watching his muscles through the tight plug suit. It was like watching a great predator's stride. The ones at the top of his legs were particularly compelling. They made their way to the pilots' locker room.

"What I would not give for a proper bath, Lady Rei." Shinji said, pulling his arms from the loosened plugsuit

"There are tubs in the next room if you like."

"What? No no, a thermae, a public baths. It is…" Shinji stopped, his hands moving in front of chest shoulders as if he were determined to grab the very ideas from thin air. "A baths is a complex with several rooms meant to not just bath but refresh it is… There was nothing in Toji or Kensuke's memories that was similar, the closest thing I think is called a spa, or sento or an onsen. They are not the same though."

"Would you tell me of them? While you…"

"Certainly." He replied, resuming in stripping off the rubbery garment. "A thermae is a public place, most often constructed for the citizens by the city. Within it are rooms to bathe in in so far as…"

Having pulled his feet from the rather clingy soles of the suit and so finally freeing himself fully, Shinji had looked up to find his companion facing away, towards a wall.

"What are you doing?"

"I have been told some find being seen naked uncomfortable."

"Do you?"

"No."

"Does seeing others in such a state bother you?"

"I…" Rei gulped down any further response, quite flushed again. To see him naked would not bother her in the least, but there was something that resisted looking upon him that way.

"Well it does not bother me. Earth is very strange. Now come on, stop staring at the wall and disrobe."

Rei suddenly felt her skin burning from her chest to the very tips of her ears. "Wh-why?"

"Well I am not going to shout to speak to you and if memory serves your shower this morning was not done with the intent of strictly bathing. Besides, this is how my people do it, I will tell you of it."

As she removed her own plugsuit, Shinji described the grand baths of his home.

"When you first enter there is a common I think one would call it, where you socialize and men if so inclined exercise in the open. Women would not of course."

"Why not?"

"Well, Lady Rei, where I come from there are rules about a free woman revealing herself in the view of men to whom she is not related or partnered. My city is known to be quite liberal about these customs but even so a woman would not participate in these exercises."

"I have read of these things. Aida gave me books about your home."

"Ah yes, Tarl's autobiography, I have not read it myself."

Her plug suit discarded, she steeled herself and looked out upon him naked for the first time. The gorean was a sight to behold. His muscles were sharply defined beneath the fading tan of his skin. The chalky white of calluses stood out on his feet, his hands, and up his elbows and his knees. It was the ill fitting shirt and the white of the plug suit against the sterile white of the walls that had hid his muscled neck atop powerful shoulders. His face, nearly devoid of fat with his high cheekbones only made him resemble his father more. His blue eyes and a bright white smile were framed by hair left to grow out since being cut weeks ago. All of this on a slim frame reinforced her earlier observation. The warrior looked like nothing less than a predator in the shape of a man.

Her eyes then finally focused between his legs. It was… there. She had never actually seen a man unclothed that she could remember. She knew clinically what had to be present and certainly there had been pictures and illustrations, but this was different. It was not disgusting as she had heard other girls say, nor was it enticing in its flaccid state. His manhood, nestled in a nest of curly black hair, just was.

"Right, so you have me thinking…" He said, speaking with the frenzy that may come upon the exhausted when their interest is peaked. "... while there may be no bath house, we can certainly simulate part of the experience. Come come come…"

Motioning for her to follow, he made his way to the showers, a wall of overhead faucets set on a tile wall.

"Stand here, yes, and I shall stand here." Moving her by the shoulders he set her in place in front of one shower head while he put himself below the one beside it. "Now, I prefer to begin in the cold bath."

With that he reached forward, took the knob and turned it with what appeared to be a certain level of confidence. Rei did the same and swiftly realized she may have committed an error in following Shinji's advice.

Shinji merely turned and stared at her, head cocked, after she jumped away from the frigid water with a squeak. Shinji found her wide eyed with her arms wrapped around her body.

"Well it does not work if you do not allow it to touch your skin."

"It is cold."

"Of course it is. What use would it be if it was not? Come on!"

To Rei's surprise, he simply reached for her and pried her her hand from her body with only his fingers.

"Ikari, please do not…"

"I told you!" He interrupted her, pulling her back into the cold water with him. "I do not like Ikari, call me Shinji!"

Things were not quite so cold as Rei thought they had been a moment before. The circumstances were a little different though, and so that might explain it. Before she had simply been beneath a flow of cold water. Now she was pressed up against him, chest to chest with his arms holding her in a bear hug.

This felt quite a lot nicer.

"Observe, it is not as bad."

Despite what had happened that very morning, these were all very new sensations for Rei and she was having a spot of trouble processing.

"Lady Rei?"

"Wha-huh?"

"Not as bad as you thought, aye?"

"Uh-huh…"

"Well, now that the cold water has invigorated us, we would go to the hot baths."

And that was how Rei had found herself in her present position. Held against a man who had by his very presence changed her world, beneath hot water turning her china white skin pink, steam enveloping them both. They stood beneath a single shower head, he had turned off the other when… actually she wasn't not quite sure when. Now her hands were flat against his abdominals and her forehead rested against his chest.

His arms were around her, his hands resting one across the other over the small of her back. She breathed in the moist, hot air. She breathed in his smell, his presence.

"So you see, m'lady, it is very relaxing."

"Yes."

"Now were we on my world, there might be a visit to a skilled slave girl for a massage, a final rinse, oils perhaps, and back into the street. However…"

Rei felt his right hand leave his left and slide across water slicked skin up her back. She shivered as his fingertips brushed between her shoulder blades before lifting away. His fingers were soon digging through her hair to push against her scalp. At first she only pressed further into his chest, until those fingers began to draw back and she finally looked up to find her sight filled with his blue eyes.

"... I think I prefer tonight, here with you, to the great baths. You see on my world men and women enjoy these things apart, the baths are segregated. Which means we could not have had this experience and that would have been very tragic."

The lady Rei fascinated Shinji. It was not just her uncommon features. On the outside she could seem cold and distant. Even before the morning's encounter though, Shinji had seen what could happen if he engaged with her. She had the spark in her.

Of course Shinji was taught, as all boys are on Gor, that every woman has that spark within her. That quality deep down that need only be stoked to a roaring flame by the right master to bring out the slave within her. Even among his people though, simplistic as they sometimes insisted they were, such things were not so definite. Not every woman was made for the collar, even as there was a collar to tame any woman.

No, some women are forged for it as truly as the collar might be forged for them. Those were ones who needed but a breath to turn the spark into a roaring flame.

For the first time, Shinji saw Rei truly smile. Not of idle amusement or momentary pleasure, but of genuine happiness. She smiled and as her hands moved to wrap her arms around his torso she even laughed, in that squealing way that girls do, as she pushed her face into his shoulder. He could feel her breath against his neck.

Shinji had learned many things since coming to Earth. Some of it was about people. He mused that perhaps one always learns when one is taken away from the familiar. Lady Rei had taught him a thing that the men of his home knew well but also knew they could not simply teach it to their sons. That though there may be pleasure in forcing out the slave in a girl, there was a pure and simply joy in watching her burst forth, bidden only by kindness.

Rei had learned from the Gorean as well. She had learned there was something more, outside her old understanding. She wanted to be like him, but not to emulate him and his ways. That would be foolish. She wanted to… she frowned as the words escaped her mind to properly construct the thought, to enunciate her own emotion.

He was known. His strength and his passion were a quantity on one side of an equation. On the other side was an answer, a state of completion. Beside him was an unknown quantity. A variable. This variable, together with him, she felt would create something rare and wonderful and somehow perfect.

As best she could grasp it, she wished to be the variable which reached the solution. She felt like she was approaching it as this fire she had begun to feel within her grew. A path to this perfect thing was a path which fed that fire.

Shinji felt the lady Rei nuzzle her cheek against his shoulder. Cool air passed over his skin as she drew in breath.

"Would you tell me of your home, Ika-" She paused. "Shinji."

"What would you like to know, Lady Rei?"

"Tell me of the kajira."

"Of course, m'lady."

* * *

Cut loose after signing an NDA and dropped off at home by a black car as dusk turned to night, Kensuke Aida was a conflicted young man.

On the one hand, he had seen real combat for the first time. He was still processing that hours later. His eyes were fixed too, and that was cool. He was still holding onto his glasses though, just in case.

On the other hand, he had gotten to watch a life on a planet called Gor. It was pretty much the best VR movie ever. Joy, pain, pride and tears, it had been amazing. There had still been some detachment though, much like a movie with a VR rig. Sex had been… interesting. Was he still a virgin if he didn't actually do it but experienced someone else doing it?

On the gripping hand, Kensuke was also keenly aware that his circle of friends had shrunk once again to zero. Toji and Shinji had both lied to him, and he had told them exactly what he thought of that. And about their mothers. And about their mothers' sexual experience, among other things. Ayanami was sweet on Shinji, so that is kind of mutually exclusive, same with Hikari and Toji.

So yeah. That sucked.

The little two bedroom house he and his father lived in was dark. Dad was working late again. Kensuke fished his key from his pocket and let himself in, kicking his shoes off and leaving them where they fell.

His pack was still at school, crap. Homework was easy. There wouldn't be school for a couple days anyway and when he did find it he would just do it all in five minutes before class anyway. Like always.

But his laptop was in there too. Crap.

Past the kitchen, down the bare walls of the hallway. He didn't feel hungry. The food NERV had given him had actually been surprisingly decent. Given who their head chef was though, that shouldn't be surprising. Oh joy, there was another thing he had lost today.

Kensuke didn't bother turning on the hall light and went to his room. Past model kits, posters, skewed stacks of books and DVDs. Past piles of laundry which he honestly could not remember whether were clean or not.

Past… stuff. Stuff he thought had mattered only hours before. Kensuke got to his bed and flopped, scissoring his legs to land ass first and letting his body fall where it would.

* * *

Toji steeled himself. He had been dropped off at his family's house and now stood in front of the door. He could hear voices inside. His father, his grandfather, and his sister. Given the time, dad was just home from work.

This was not going to be an easy conversation.

Well, when you can't retreat and you can't hold ground, the only option is to go meet fate Toji thought as he opened the door. He didn't even have his shoes off when it started.

"Toji Suzuhara, where _have_ you been?"

"It's a really long story Sir."

"Well you can wash up and start telling me while we cook. These mushrooms ain't gonna clean and chop themselves."

"Oi." Toji sunk his shoulders in defeat before hanging up his jacket next to dad's white double breasts chef's jacket. Next to the white jacket was a belt on which dad kept his knives. The metallic holster was empty of course. Dad insisted on HIS knives and they went with him. He carried, and frequently used, them as the head chef of NERV's many cafeterias and in his own kitchen.

Toji put on his house slippers and crossed into the kitchen. He snatched his apron off the row of hooks with one finger. There were two others still hanging. His grandfather's, professional black and faded like his son and grandson's, and a little gingham one that belonged to his sister. Not that she used it much. Cooking in the Suzuhara house was a man's business.

Above the hooks was a chalkboard, upon which the week's meals were written as well the precise times they would be served. 'If you aren't home when dinner is served, you better find something else to eat' was written across the top.

Tonight was Stroganoff. Which meant Toji had a shiitake-ton of button mushrooms to clean with a stupid little brush and slice up. It was actually really annoying. Toji didn't mind mushrooms, he just hated when dad made them. Because dad refused to listen to freakin' reason that mushrooms did not soak up that much water and so did not need to be cleaned with a freakin' toothbrush. But nooooo, that was the way it was done, and Sora Suzuhara would hear no arguments to the contrary.

Their home was reasonable, perhaps even a little small for the four of them but that never bothered any of them much. Only the galley kitchen was an annoyance, but it was familiar. Toji did not need to think about the graceful side step he took around his father without touching the oven door behind him. It was practiced.

"Behind ya."

"Got ya."

Sora Suzuhara was as most imagined his son would be soon. Tall and broad with thick arms and legs like stone columns, now in his 40s he had acquired a larger stomach than he once had. Not that it was at all soft, Toji once saw him take a bunch to the gut and laugh it off while the other guy cried over his fingers. Toji had nearly matched his height, but lacked his father's adult brawn and bristly beard.

That beard, incidentally, was trimmed close to his jaw and cut to sharp and crisp angles. His hair was still dark with no grey and kept short as well as close to his skull by a haircut every twelve days, in contrast to Toji's own which was only kept tame by occasional cuts and one pass straight back with the brush each morning. Once his son's hair reached an inch and half, it was officially deemed 'long' and in need of attention or a hat until such attention might be paid.

That is all to say that Sora Suzuhara is a man of order. Things in his home happen when, how, and why they are supposed to happen; and that meant that mushrooms were cleaned with a brush, not water.

"They told me at work that you were involved in what happened today." Sora began, eyes remaining on his hands as he began to cube the tenderloin.

"Yes, Sir." Toji replied, picking up the accursed mushroom brush. They often had talks like this, hands busy with the physical so they could discuss the important things. "They, um, kept me for a while to talk about how it all went down."

"What's botherin' ya son?"

"It's a long story."

"That's what you said already. We got time."

"It may be done before the stroganoff."

"Then we'll make time."

So Toji told the story. Start to finish. He had told dad and grandpa about Shinji the day he met him, that was important. Left out the bit about the almost fight of course. The beef and mushrooms were simmering together, with just a little bit of fried onion, in the sauce as he finished. His father did not interrupt but for to ask him to use his inside voice, Sakura was doing her homework after all and if she did not finish before dinner it put her behind on everything else. It was an exciting tale though, no wonder he got loud a few times. Otherwise Toji's father only nodded.

"So to surmise." Sora said. "You ran after your damn fool friend like a damn fool yourself, an' got caught in the middle of the big ol' giant robot versus kaiju fight."

"Yes Sir."

"Then, because we now appear to be living in a cartoon, you and Kensuke ended up inside the cockpit and helped fight the tentacle monster."

"Yes Sir."

"Suppose I should just be thankful your mother didn't have a daughter first or this would not be conversation suitable for preparing dinner at all. Anyhow, in the midst of this you had a mind meld with the home worlder and Kensuke. Now Kensuke's mad at ya because you didn't tell him the particulars of our extraction before. That about sum it up?"

"Yeah just about. I know it sounds crazy."

"Toji, I work for NERV. Even if my daddy wasn't a goddamn alien, it's gonna take more than that to be too incredible to believe."

Toji did not respond. Dad was making light of the situation, so he guessed he couldn't be too mad. Then again dad used humor to deflect too, so really no way to tell.

"Bottom line bein' now Kensuke knows the family secret."

"Yeah."

"So the question becomes, seein' as you did not trust him to keep it before, do ya trust him to keep it now?"

Toji thought. And thought. And finally, when he had finished, his shoulder slumped forward and he breathed a heavy sigh.

"So is that a yes or a no?"

"I guess… Dad, I dunno. When we were in there, I mean it was like we all lived each others lives. So he knows why it had to be a secret, and he's heard all the talks you and gramps gave me. Heard'em again when you gave'em to Sakura too. I'm afraid he might say something by accident, but I don't think he would ever do it intentionally. But I went and pissed him off so…"

"Toji, I know Kensuke. Known him since you two were building giants outta blocks and swinging around cardboard tube swords. Hell, you two have been tearin' around this house since your mothers were still around. I know him and you know him. Now is there anything in all that time that makes you think Kensuke Aida would do a petty thing like that?"

"No Sir."

"Damn right. An' the both of us should be ashamed for considerin' it."

"Yeeaah…"

"So, when you gonna tell Miss Horaki?"

"Oh my god, dad!"

"I'm just saying."

"No, you are not just saying! You are never just saying when it comes to her!"

"Course if our providence is to be known I suppose I should start addressing her as Lady Hikari."

"And you wonder why I don't bring her over more."

"She's certainly a good woman, in fact pappy and I were just sayin' that not too long ago." Mr. Suzuhara said before yelling through the kitchen door. "Weren't we pappy?"

"Weren't we what?" Toji's grandfather called back. Toji's head was starting to hurt. He had a great relationship with his father… Almost as good as his father and his grandfather. Relationships which they were, for lack of a better word, leveraging to push the relationship between Toji and Hikari Horaki ever onward. Toji swore they wanted him married before he got out of high school.

"Talkin' about little Ms. Horaki!"

"Oh yes, sweet thing sweet thing. Makes some fearsomely good pastries, she does. When is she coming over again?"

"That she does." Sora called back before turning back to Toji. "Y'know your sister certainly likes her too."

"Yes dad, I am very aware you all like Hikari very much. The problem is _her_ sisters like to attack me onsite."

"In fact, you know what son?" Mr. Suzuhara continued without concern. "Should invite her over. In fact let's get that homeworlder too, and maybe ya can patch things up Kensuke. I'll put out a good spread and grandpa will make sure it's all homeworld type stuff. We'll have a feast for you and your friends' victory, now how's that sound?"

"It sounds great dad. You want that before or after my funeral?"

"Before certainly. No son of mine is gonna get killed by a coupla hens before he at least gets me some grandchildren. Still slow on that front if I may, despite me an' pappy doin' our best."

"You two are a couple of damn hens!" Toji yelled, just to make sure his grandfather could hear too.

"Buck buck buck…" Was the response from the next room.

"And on that bombshell it's time for dinner. Go get washed up and get your sister."

"Yes, dad." Toji said, quickly hanging up his apron and beating feet up the stairs.

"And you better call Ms. Horaki after dinner and let her know you're alright."

"Yes, dad!"

Soon the Suzuhara family was around the table. With only the four of them the table was not a large affair. If more chairs were crowded in it might fit eight, but for now there were just two chair on each long side.

"Now while I usually spare us all the time, I want us to all pray tonight before dinner." Sora Suzuhara said, seated next to his daughter and across from his father, Toji on his diagonal. The family look ran strong in the men, and Toji's grandfather was much like his son and his grandson, broad and strong. His face was wrinkled and not without scars. While his son's hair stayed dark, his own was filled with streaks of gray.

"Toji did a brave thing today. Now don't you worry he'll tell y'all about it but I want to say something. When you have warriors in your family, you gotta know they might not be at dinner table when you expect them. That is the nature of their lives. What happened today though wasn't about being a warrior. It was about watching out for a friend. Even if that friend doesn't like you much afterwards. So I want us to give thanks tonight, because Toji is here to eat this meal with us. A friend is a terrible thing to lose, but Toji came back to us alive and with all his parts attached. And I think his friend will come around too, and they will both be better for it. Now none of us talk to the old priest kings in their mountains much, it's just not our way, but I know we all remember how."

* * *

After dinner was eaten, Toji was dismissed from cleaning up so he could let his woman know he was okay.

"Yeah… No, no, I'm sorry I just couldn't call and then I got home right before dinner and you know how dad is about that."

"But you're okay, you're sure?" HIkari asked, worry clear in her quiet voice.

"Yeah, no, I'm okay, don't worry." Toji reassured her.

"Hikari! Stop wasting time on the phone. Are you talking to that ape Suzuhara again!?" Someone else, a female voice, shouted from Hikari's end of the line. Hikari sighed heavily.

"Hey hon, I need to go." She finally said.

"Yeah, I got ya. Love you babe."

"You too. See you." Hikari said, glaring at the back of her big sister Kodama's head. Toji had told her, repeatedly that her not being able to respond in kind when he said he loved her did not bother him, he would say it enough for them both. It was only when they were on the phone and her elder sister Kodoma was around. Of course if her younger sister Nozomi was present, Kodama would hear about it too. She just idolized her big sister and so shared her unkind opinion of Toji. Now if dad was around he would never say anything, but he would speak to Kodama about how concerned he was about that Suzuhara boy and… ugh.

"Big sis, I'm hungry!"

"Nozomi, you just had a snack. Dinner will be ready soon." Hikari said, brushing her little sister off her skirts.

"Hey would'ya take this to the trash, thanks." Kodoma said, lifting her beer can over her head. She actually dropped it, not waiting for someone else to get a grip. Hikari still caught it of course, even with Nozomi hanging on her skirt again.

"But Nee-saaaaaaaaaaan!"

"Nozomi , if you have a snack now you won't be hungry for dinner."

"Yeah I will!"

"Nozomi, come on, please can we not do this tonight? Dinner will be ready in ten minutes."

"But you haven't even started and I'm staaaarving!"

"Fine!"

"Hikari! Don't yell at your sister! She's just hungry, why are you being so mean?" Kodama, ever protective of her younger siblings, was up from the couch with her arms wrapped around the pouting twelve year old.

"Yeah, why'a bein' so mean Hikari?!"

Hikari, cowed, bowed her head. "I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"As you well should be. You'll give her a complex yelling at her like that. Stop forcing your expectations on her." Kodoma said, glaring daggers at Hikari and stroking Nozomi's hair.

"Yeah. I'll… I'll get dinner done."

* * *

Kensuke awoke with the morning light coming through the window above his bed. His sleep had been fitful, restless, and full of dreams that never felt like his own.

The memories he had gained before were like dreams. You were so sure of what you saw during and right after you wake up, but every moment that passed made it that much harder to grasp, to bring into focus. In the same way, they were quickly fading away. His dreams had been vivid, but disconnected. One moment the setting was familiar, the next all but alien. It had all been hard to tell apart, especially the times when the memory was one he knew was his own, only to discover it was of the same thing, but seen from Toji's eyes when he saw himself walk by.

He sat up, swinging his legs off the bed and reflexively reaching for his glasses. But the distortion was just dried sleep, and his vision was sharp. It was the inescapable reminder that what had been had truly been, and not a dream.

Kensuke was not sure what to feel about what had happened. The experience of battle, the imposition of Shinji and Toji's lives upon his own, had forced him into a new perspective. Before Kensuke had at least been satisfied, if a little bored in life. Now… Now it just felt like he hated everyone and everything, and mostly himself.

The allegory of the cave. Reality is much more full and real than it seems from your narrow view. When thrust forward into the light, the instinct of the ignorant is to cower back in the darkness. The man who steps forward into the sun, hungry for the world, is… the word was not coming.

Something about that thought had not been his, and it was slipping away. There was no holding onto them. He could catch an idea and hold it just long enough to begin, but to finish was elusive.

Kensuke grabbed and pulled at his hair, a growl turning into a scream of anguish.

He wanted to stop it, to be able to see the picture and find all it's little details. Details. Kensuke liked details, data, statistics, hard facts. Fuck metaphor, fuck allegory, fuck impermanent subjective bullshit!

He didn't have data to help him make sense of this. He had _feelings_.

"Do not fear your storms and your powers… Fuck, where did that come from?!" Kensuke snapped at himself. Okay Ken, think. The really weird shit has got to be from Shinji and all the little stuff is fading away already. What remains is strong emotions and attachment. So what's fuckin' with you is real strong feelings with all the context gone.

Great. Well it was a start. He needed context. If he could make sense of this crap at least it wouldn't be so jarring. Ken mused that reading the Gor books might help make sense of Shinji's crap, but his laptop was at school, so not doing that.

Kensuke looked for his phone and found it laying on his desk. Did Shinji even know how to use a phone? Ken knew he had a number, he'd saved it when Shinji first showed him the cell phone they had given him to use. Maybe he learned how to use it. Kensuke got a bunch of fucked up memories and angst, maybe Shinji learned how to use a stupid phone.

Why would he pick up? Granted the both of them had it coming, but Kensuke figured he had been a real asshole yesterday.

So he picked up the phone. It rang. Many times. Just as Kensuke was considering hanging up, figuring that if he could not pick up the phone he definitely had not set up voicemail either, Shinji picked up.

"Tal, you are speaking with the warrior Shinji Cabot of Tokyo-3."

"Uh Hi, its Kensuke… you know that seems like a sort of clumsy way to answer the phone."

"Agreed, it is long winded. I have received very few telephone calls and have had correspondingly few attempts to improve it. However I do not believe you called to discuss my telephone greeting. What did you wish to discuss?"

"Uh, well, I guess I wanted to say I'm sorry. Yesterday was a lot to take in and I should not have said what I did. You didn't do anything wrong, I shouldn't be mad at you."

"Kensuke, my friend… No, we are friends and between friends no apologies are necessary,"

"Thanks."

"You are most welcome."

"So, what I wanted to talk about. Man, I got some weird shit through my head and I think a lot of it is from you. I… I can't think straight but I think if I could get some help understanding it maybe it would help."

"Certainly. Would you amenable to visiting my quarters? There are circumstances which prohibit my going out and visiting your own."

"Do I want to know?"

"I will explain if you wish when we meet. Do you need the location?"

"Yeah one sec, lemme get something to write with…"

The angel having not actually reached the city, the largely automated trains were already back up and running. As such, Kensuke was soon knocking on the door of the apartment shared by Misato Katsuragi and Shinji.

And apparently a certain blue haired classmate whom Kensuke still had rather vivid memories about, 'borrowed' from Shinji.

"Ayanami?!"

"Good morning Aida."

"W-what are you doing here?"

"I spent the night."

Not just memories, but rather detailed fantasies. Kensuke was considered if it was possible to die from an impending sight gag nosebleed as squealing laughter erupted from the apartment.

"Oh my god Rei! You're going to give the poor kid a heart attack attack talking like that." Kensuke remembered Misato's voice, along with a healthy dose of fear, and he was rather relieved to hear Shinji as well.

"Kensuke my friend, come in, come in."

Breakfast was shared, tea was served, and explanations were made. Ken had difficulty keeping up at times, as visions of being served tea in the fashion Shinji must have considered normal still flitted through his mind. Obscene was a good word to describe them.

"So Captain Katsuragi decided to blow off all of her paperwork and after actions to take you out to dinner, Ayanami asked if she could come long. Except hardly anybody was open, 'cause you know giant monster attack. So you got take out from a convenience store and all came back here."

"Yep! Was still fun too!" Misato beamed.

"And Ayanami spent the night because...?"

"It was late." Shinji said. "Well not extraordinarily so, but I was not sufficient to the task of escorting the Lady Rei home."

"Shinji was kind enough to extend me the use of his bed." Rei added with not a hint of inflection.

"Rei, if I didn't know better I'd say you were doing that on purpose. They did not get up to anything." MIsato said, throwing a look at the two pilots. "Don't let her or Shinji fool you into thinking otherwise Aida. We rolled out an extra futon for him in the living room. Uh-uh, I am keeping my eye on these two after what I found them doing in the showers last night."

Ken's head snapped back to look at the other teens. "What… what were ya doin' in the shower?"

"Sharing my culture over a private conversation." Shinji said, not hiding his glare towards his minder. "Before we were rudely interrupted."

"Oh don't start this again." Misato said, rolling her eyes.

"All I was going to say was that you Earthlings have such primitive attitudes towards nudity. We are all beings of reason yet you assume we cannot be in the nude and close without mounting like a couple of beasts. Besides, Lady Rei was assisting me in washing."

"It would be totally awesome if we could talk about something else please."

Shinji adjourned with Kensuke to the balcony and they spoke, both sitting on plastic chairs.

"I feel like everything I have done, everything I enjoy… it just doesn't matter anymore. The books I've read, the comics, the anime, I mean none of it accomplished anything. In comparison to what you've done-"

"Do not compare yourself to me my friend. Our experiences are too different."

"That is what I mean!" Kensuke leapt to his feet, throwing his hands out and shouting. "I haven't done anything, and I haven't learned to do anything worth shit! All I've learned how to do is be a sheep! To be a useful part… a device… a cog! Just one stupid part nobody even thinks of in a machine."

Kensuke dropped his hands, his shoulders collapsing as though all of his energy had been expelled with his words.

"And here I am screaming like an idiot to you about it. Sorry I got out of control."

"Do not fear your currents and your powers. It was something Tarl told me when I foolishly thought I had allowed my emotions to somehow best me. A man's emotions, a warrior's most especially, are not an adversary. We are not lesser for expressing our feelings. Even shedding tears openly is nothing of which to be ashamed."

"Okay, what does that mean to me, what should I do?"

Shinji shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot tell you the meaning or means of your life my friend. Perhaps you are now without a heading. You do not know where you will journey next in this wider world our experience has opened to you."

"Yeah… I guess I don't know where to go."

"You know… well, I presume you know at some level anyway, that my people have a saying."

"Shinji, I am very aware your people have a great many saying and I am also rather sure none of the ones I know would be helpful here."

"Aaah, but you would be incorrect my friend. For it is said that when at a crossroad with no understanding of where one should then travel, you are in infinitely better conditions…"

"If you just choose one and go instead of standing around?"

"What? No! You are in infinitely better conditions if you had bothered to bring a damned map. Find your direction in the wisdom of others if you seek to travel known paths and know it well before you decide to blaze your own."

"Oh… Yeah that makes more sense."

"Yes, foolish nonsense what you were saying before."

"Yeah." Kensuke said, nodding. The more he thought about it the more insipid it sounded.

"The exception being if you truly have no other choice, but the occurrence of that, so I was taught, is far less than we would think. So use your time now and seek wisdom where you may find it, you quite like reading, aye?"

"Yeah. Have to wait until school starts again though. I got some paper, but most of my books are on my laptop."

"And so?"

"I left it in my bag, which is still at my desk. The angel alarm rang during lunch."

"I see. Shall we retrieve it then?"

"Huh?"

"Why wait until classes begin again? We can go ourselves and retrieve your device."

"Uh, school is closed dude."

"We are students, it is our academy, surely none would contest retrieving our belongings. Come, there it but a door in the way. Lady Rei may accompany us as well, it shall be an outting!"

Captain Katsuragi had been surprisingly blase about the affair, which Shinji proposed quite honestly.

"Eh, I'm going to head into work. If the cops show up call me, otherwise you are on your own."

And so they found themselves before the doors of Tokyo-3 Municipal High School.

Kensuke tugged on one of the bank of doors into the high school building's lobby.

The doors which were very much locked. Kensuke reported as such.

"Then we shall find a window."

"The windows on the ground floor don't open."

"Ah, but.." Shinji pointed upwards. "The windows in our classroom do. I have seen it and there is no latch."

"Yeah but that is on the second floor."

"Exactly, an easy climb."

"Wha-?"

"It is simple!" Shinji said as he set off, hand raised and counting windows with his fingertip. Kensuke followed. "We climb up, enter the window, retrieve your things and exit as we came in."

"Uh, yeah, I'm not so sure. You been climbing the walls when nobody's looking?"

"It is only one floor!" Shinji said, coming to a stop below their classroom window. He certainly did look confident, palms resting on his hips. "I need only find one perhaps two good toeholds and I will be in."

"Uh huh… Where exactly are you going to find these toeholds? I'm not seeing it." Kensuke said, staring at the wall. Shinji was now sitting on the turf, taking off his boots.

"I shall leap from the ground and take hold of the wall just above the window there, I suppose that is a beam or some such extending out. I will pull myself up, set my toes upon the exterior wall and that should be sufficient to reach that bottom base of the window frame. From there, I need only bring my feet to the initial position of my hands. Simple."

"Yeah alright Ezio." Kensuke said as Shinji rose from the ground.

"Et-sio?"

"Nothin'. Alright, let's see it." Kensuke gestured towards the building.

"And see it you shall my friend!" Shinji stretched his shoulders and set his feet to the ground for a running start. "And too you will see that while my upbringing may not be as academically rigorous as yours, there are advantages to rigorous training!"

Leopard taught muscles flung Shinji forwards. As he neared the wall he drew his arms back and threw them up, launching himself upwards...

Before continuing, it should be said that when Earthlings come to Gor, they find themselves benefiting from their worlds noticeably heavier gravity and in possession of extraordinary strength. This is the case even if they are not in possession of the most fit physique. It is perhaps not as well known that the reverse is also true.

Shinji's face smacked against the glass window and he stumbled back from the wall, one hand holding his nose.

"Ow… It appears I missed my mark."

"Yeah, you barely made it ten centimeters off the ground." Kensuke said. Shinji cocked his head and Kensuke held up his hands to show the small distance.

"That's not right…" Shiji said, looking up the side of the building again. "I can jump higher than that without a running start."

"Gravity is a harsh mistress."

"Uugh… and very ready to correct us." Shinji said, his steps unsteady as he moved away from the wall to assess his plan again. "Alright, very well. If I cannot jump to reach the first handhold, we need only lift me to that point and I should be able continue the ascent as planned."

"We?"

"Yes we."

"I don't see Ayanami around to try lifting you up."

"Where has she gone? Now see, it does not matter I would not have asked her. It is not a woman's work. Now come and give me a boost."

Kensuke made an attempt to protest or at least to expound on why this was a poor idea. The cyclical nature of life being what it is however, he found himself dragged along with it. The result was his legs were shaking, trying to keep back braced against the first floor window as Shinji first placed one foot in his hand, then the other on his shoulder.

"Shinji, hurry up!"

"Almost there my friend!... Wait, I hear something… The window is opening its…"

Kensuke watched his back pack fall beside him, landing cushioned by a bush.

"Lady Rei, how did-"

At this point, Kensuke gave up and only gave thought to not taking the brunt of his friend's weight in the resulting fall. He certainly was not going to hold the Gorean up to have a conversation with his crush. Shinji fell on his side and was back on his feet as Kensuke recovered his bag. They both looked up to Rei's head poking out of the window.

"My ID card."

"Wait, Ayanami, why does your ID card open the school doors? I thought only teachers had those." Kensuke asked.

"Commander Ikari said I may need greater access." She replied.

"I am not sure breaking and entering is what he had in mind."

"We have broken nothing, she only entered." Shinji replied, rubbing the shoulder he had fallen upon while stretching his arm in tall circles and looking up at Rei, still peeking out of the window. "Well done m'lady!"

And with that Rei swiftly pulled her head inside, which made Shinji smile. Perhaps she had sought to conceal the color in her cheeks, but he saw it plainly enough. They were soon on their way again, back towards the Katsuragi-Ikari apartment.

"Now Kensuke my friend, if you have any questions, perhaps you wish more information or maybe Tarl was unclear, please ask."

"Yeah."

"Our ways are beautiful. I hope that with your new insight you may enjoy Tarl's works more."

"Yeah…" Kensuke said again. He was looking past Shinji to Rei, who walked on his friend's opposite shoulder. Memories and a certain amount of context were coming together in his head. It was past being weird and awkward, now it was just becoming distracting. Ayanami had always had such an impassive stare, in every situation. She was just limp, existing. Now though her hands were constantly reaching for the gorean, and her eyes were on him more than the path before them.

Desire was only part of the frustration Kensuke felt watching her. There was envy of a kind. She was being drawn into a new world, one he knew and very much wanted to be part of, and he was not. The experience in the battle had made that all the more bitter. Kensuke did not envy what she would become, but that she would be part of it at all.

The thought came to him that this feeling was the true source of the surge of anger he had felt for Shinji and Toji and so the cause of his outburst, rather than betrayal. It was jealously. They both had a means to what he himself wanted. Pride, power, money, women, adventure. The whole do well in school, go to a good college, get a good salary career ladder was not really setup for such goals. Even when those things were achieved, they were more in imitation than reality. A really rich guy might set himself up with a house like a king and all that, put swords on the wall, have mistresses he keeps around with money. That is not the same thing as a man going out and making that for himself though.

Kensuke was struggling to form an accurate concept of what he envied. It wasn't really freedom, because caste codes and the like. Goreans would say they value freedom, but their idea of it was different from that of Earth. Kensuke was not sure of the best way to describe that either.. A thought he recognized as Shinji's intruded into his mind, reminding him that wild things like animals and plants are free, and so to be respected.

Something about the idea of being able to make one's own life by the sword while not being a criminal was alluring, even if it seemed naive to believe that was anything but being a barbarian.

Kensuke looked to Shinji and Rei again. She was hanging on his arm. Her eyes were on his face, letting him guide her. Kensuke looked away.

He wanted that someday. He wanted other stuff first. Women could wait, he had his right hand. Which was not an entirely good place to start when looking at one's own self esteem. The issue was further worsened by whom he saw waiting for them at the entrance to the apartment building.

"Uh, hey guys…" Toji Suzuhara said. Kensuke could tell as they closed the distance with Toji that he was already nervous. Which was sorta funny to Kensuke at least, since Toji was normally pretty chill.

"Hello Suzuhara." Rei replied, lifting her head from where her cheek had been pressed against Shinji's arm.

"Tal… my friend?" Shinji said, his voice lifting to the question. "Lady Rei, I do not mean to be rude but this is something of a private matter. I beg your favor, leave us men to our talk, aye?"

Rei looking from Shinji, to Kensuke, to Toji. With a distinctly disappointed huff she let go of Shinji's arm. "I will go inside."

Kensuke said nothing, his gaze staying on Toji as Rei passed him and went in the building. When she was inside, Toji spoke again.

"Yeah… uh… Look I said some mean things and I shouldna'. And I should have trusted my best friend a lot more. I hope you know why I had to do it." Toji then held his arms straight to his side and bowed. "And I really hope we can still be friends. All of us. I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Kensuke said, quite dryly.

"Do you understand why I had to do what I did?"

"I get why you had to do it. I don't like that you don't trust me."

"Man, I trust you, I just had to protect my family. I promise, I won't lie to you again. Like ever." Toji continued.

"I appreciate that." Kensuke replied.

"So... we cool?"

"Oh we're cool…"

The smaller boy took two steps forward and raised his hand, index finger pointed inches from Toji's face.

"But you!" Kensuke raised his other hand to point at Shinji, still sitting on the parapet. "And you! I saw things when we were in there, dude. Awesome things! I want to learn, man, I want to learn it all. Everything!"

"Everything, huh?" Toji said, crossing his arms. Shinji rose to his feet.

"Everything about what, my friend?"

"About you guys, about Gor! How to talk, how to act, how to fight! I want to learn to, no I want to BE Gorean."

Shinji began to laugh, then Toji. It took Kensuke a moment to realize they were not mocking him, it was only joyful.

"We have fought together." Shinji said.

"Side by side!" Kensuke said, pumping his fist in the air.

"We killed a damn angel." Toji added with a toothy grin.

"That makes us comrades." Kensuke said.

"Makhaira i'mota. Sword brothers!" Shinji corrected, and embraced Kensuke with one arm about his shoulders

"Sword brothers." Toji agreed. He grabbed both his friends with strong arms around them, and they him.

"Makhaira i'mota. Ta Sardar Gor." Shinji said. Kensuke did not need him to translate.

"Sword brothers. By the priest kings."

"Against all comers, my friends."

* * *

 **Berlin 2003**

"Well then, if we are agreed I will be off to inform the missus that plans will be moved up. The boy will need a caring mother after all." Tarl turned, hooking his thumbs into his belt. One blue eye glared over his shoulder at Yui. "Because he certainly does not have one now."

"I…"

"Yui, do you know how a warrior mother sends her son off to fight for the first time? Exactly as a companion might. She hands him his shield and tells him 'with it or on it'. That shield represents everything she has taught him, because it is his mother who showed him what would be expected of his heart as well as how to be wily and cunning."

"I won't be there for that, that does not mean I do not care."

"No Yui, instead you are perverting the entire way of things. You wish the boy's father to hand you a weapon, your son, to fight with. Wishes are not reality, no matter how much this world likes to teach they are. So Shinji will be the warrior you need. However a warrior is a man of passion, of powers and storms. So I will raise him to be the warrior you need, regardless of whether that is what you want."


	5. Chapter 5

Priest-Kings on a bike, it has been nearly six months since I updated. A thousand apologies for the wait everyone.

Life has been just nuts and this took a while but this chapter lays a lot of groundwork for the story going forward. For those of you waiting, Asuka will be appearing next chapter and entering the story proper after that.

Now please sit back and relax, with a cup of wine and a nice kajira if it suits you, and enjoy chapter five of Rebuild: A Warrior From A (Counter) Earth!

And if you like it, please remember to leave a review and follow the story!

* * *

 **CERN, Switzerland - 1998**

Yui Ikari's heels clicked against the pavement. Stocking clad legs beneath her dark wool pencil skirt carried her and her white coat fluttered in the breeze. The folders and binders held against her chest hid the plunging neckline of her blouse, but that was quite alright. It did nothing to put off the attention of the men around her.

It had been five years this next month since she returned to Earth, her foreign 'husband' at her side. At least he could already speak English, though he was having a devil of a time with Japanese.

Father had been understanding, if shocked to see his daughter return after a decade missing and not looking a day older. And married even.

Now she once again walked her homeworld as a woman, a FREE woman, of Earth. She only served one man now, and as his wife it was the very least she could do after dragging him halfway across the solar system. She could wear what she liked for no other reason than her own enjoyment. Yui still enjoyed the attention of men, but it was her choice to now. Her choice, yes that was the important part.

The men around her were hardly the kind for her to find threatening, so their attention was only a petty amusement. Not a one was the equal or even rival to Gendo. They were intellectuals, scientists, tinkerers. Scribes they would be called back on Gor. Even among the Gorean scribes they would be a somewhat scrawny lot though. A soft world makes soft people.

Passing another campus building, Yui saw a quite different man step around the next corner. He was tall, over two meters in fact. His jacket over his red cable knit sweater made his shoulders look enormously broad and even so covered she could see how thick and powerful his limbs were. His hair looked a sandy blond, like red bleached by the sun.

Now that sort of man would not be unusual or unwelcome, Yui thought as her tongue passed over her rouged lips. In fact he did not look too different from a friend of Gendo's from his pirate days. Not too different at all…

Yui started walking faster and looked to the other side of the street. It was not him, it could not be him, but some part of her shouted over logic, urging her to get moving NOW!

He nodded his head towards her as they passed but nothing more. Yui turned the corner and pushed her back up against the brick wall of the building. Breath she had not realized she was holding escaped her lips. Yui Ikari looked to the grey sky. A coincidence and nothing more, that was all it was.

Yui closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself. She was ready to continue now and pushing away from the wall when the voice of an Englishman reached her ears.

"Excuse me, would you be Yui?"

Yui Ikari opened her eyes. He stood before her, as big and as true as the sky. The sick bastard was smiling, he even passed for looking friendly.

"Yui, it is you! I could never forget those eyes. My goodness it must be nearly six years since I last saw you! How are you keeping? And what of Gendo, I heard he left with you?"

"T-t-ta…" Yui stammered over quivering lips. It was him. What was he doing here?!

Yui dropped her papers, her manicure ruined as her fingers dug at the wall behind her for escape.

"Tarl…"

"Yes, Tarl Cabot. Yui, are you quite alright?"

* * *

 **Tokyo-3 - The Present**

Despite his misgivings about having to attend this academy, Shinji was indeed learning something new. His friends Toji and Kensuke had invited him along for a vigorous Earth game called basketball.

Shinji had found in his time traveling with Tarl that ball games were something of a constant. In fact he was quite sure that no matter where you go, you will find men and boys doing something with a ball. Or lacking a ball but with some violence nearby, a head. Sometimes they throw it, sometimes they kick it. It must pass through an arch, or over a line, or touch a tree. In all their variations they were simple and easy to join, and join Shinji had. He had played ball with children to whom he could not even communicate but for the game and joyful cheering.

Basketball was just another ball game but yet so different. The strategy, the scoring zones, the techniques of 'dribbling', of which Shinji himself could barely perform the most basic… and the banter. 'Trash talk' his friends called it.

"Well come on new kid. You just going to stand there? Come on, do something!" The boy blocking his way to the basket, 'screening' him as it was known, was taunting. Not very well, but it did succeed in being annoying. "I took less time to shoot last night with your mom."

Perhaps it was better not being able to communicate with the opposing players.

"Your mother sold for two bits"

"Huh?" The boy stopped for a moment in confusion, or so Shinji thought. Shinji threw the ball left, towards Toji, but his opponent merely snatched it from the air and the game turned.

"Hey man!" Toji caught his attention as they transitioned to defense on the half court. "It was a good throw, good throw, just bad luck. Hustle on the defense."

The midday lunch period was coming to an end, so the game was ended. Shinji did not take the loss well.

"Good game man!" The boy who had faced him said, extending his hand to shake. Even as alien as he was to this place and it to him, Shinji knew the right thing to do. Which was also, and more importantly, the honorable thing to do.

Shinji turned away with a snarl. "I need not your pity."

Shinji walked away from the school towards the perimeter fence. Perhaps he would just go home, or walk the streets for a while. He was not sure what he meant to do. Shinji's slouched as he walked. He was angry, though wrath at his opponent was a flimsy lie. He was angry at himself for that shameful reaction. His insults had been in jest, just a mind game to take advantage and nothing more. That earthling had done the honorable thing and sought his hand after the game.

Some warrior he was to act so small.

"Shinji!" A familiar but unexpected voice called out. Lost in his own thoughts, Shinji had not looked upon what was right in front of him.

"Lady Maya?" Was all he could manage to respond, confused as he was. What was she doing here? Was something wrong? Had there been an emergency would he have not been contacted another way?

"Hey, are you busy?" She asked.

"Um, well, no… I mean classes will resume soon. Er, is something wrong?" Shinji responded, stumbling through his words.

"Oh no no, I had some time open up today and I was wondering if now would be a good time to talk."

"To… talk?"

"Remember? Part of my job is to keep up with you and do what I can to help you integrate. So I want to meet up regularly to just talk."

"Ah, yes." Shinji said as the school bell began to ring.

"So, would now be a good time? I won't delay you if you want to get back to class."

"No." He said then paused. "No Lady Maya, I think a break from school is just what I need…"

* * *

"So, how is school going?"

They had walked to a nearby tower. Within the foyer of metal and glass was an atrium thick with tropical plants, central to which was metal table and chairs surrounded by green. Maya told him that she had begun to research his homeworld and learned his people had a love for nature. She thought he would appreciate it and he did.

"Going, Lady Maya? I've not seen it move."

"Sorry, an idiom. How are you finding it?"

"It is… dissimilar from what I am accustomed to."

"Could you tell me how so?"

"Well, I have discussed this with the captain as well but schooling here is very… I am trying to find the best word but all I can think of is unfocused, I think that is right."

"General as opposed to specialized?"

"Yes! Yes that is it, thank you Lady Maya."

"Okay. Would you like to tell me about how a day at school in Ko-Ro-Ba is different from Tokyo-3?"

"Well at my academy we slept in barracks together, males only of course. At the point at which I left I was quite close to graduating and testing for citizenship so this is more advanced. Girls and boys are taught together when they are younger but for the warriors our education quickly diverges. At dawn we rose, exercised with aerobics and gymnastics, ate together, drilled in formation, then to whatever studies we were assigned for the day. Because I am literate these later studies included command, tactics, strategy, logistics, that sort of thing." Shinji said, leaving out the espionage, cyphers, subversion, sapping, and the many things Tarl liked to laugh and call 'ungentlemanly warfare'. "In the evening we had time to play games or study on our own. After that we were required to be rested and present in the morning but as nominal adults we had the run of the city."

"Oh…" Maya said, sitting up so straight it looked to Shinji like she was leaning away from him. "I'm sorry I had no idea. That must have been quite the culture shock to you. At your age you were considered an adult then?"

"As I said, nominally. None of us had sat the examination to become citizens and I think most would still consider us simply older children."

"I think I understand. Not only is school different but you've been pulled back two years in a way. What you describe would not be unusual for an eighteen year old serving in the military, which I suppose is an accurate description of what you were doing."

"I would agree."

"Okay, I am going to make a note to talk to Captain Katsuragi. Let me know if I am wrong but I think adjusting your curfew to provide for morning exercises and free time in the evening would make you more comfortable."

"Er… I am under a curfew?"

"Uh, yes. I mean you haven't tried to push or disobey the curfew. I thought you knew."

"Lady Maya, I haven't gone anywhere besides where I was ordered." Not totally truthful but if she did not know Shinji was not about to make it known. "I am a warrior under direct orders from my commanding officer."

"Oh. I… suppose that makes sense." Maya said, feeling less than clever about not considering it this way before. He was not a kid, he was a soldier. "I don't think anyone will object if you would like those changes."

"I would be most appreciative, my lady."

"Great. Moving on, I wanted to ask you what do you remember, if anything, about Earth before you went to Gor?"

"Honestly, very little. I don't think I remember anything specific, more impressions. I recognized my father's face but not who he was. I remember my mother but not what she looked like so much as… what is the word, I do not know… I remember her voice, I remember the feeling of being with her, little bits of songs she sang me. To be truthful, I really thought of Tarl Cabot as the father I never had until quite recently. He told others I was his son in several situations and his father recognized me as his grandson. It was actually quite the burden to live up to!"

"Why is that?"

"Tarl is quite well known, he has done a great many things. His father, Matthew Cabot, is the leader of my city."

"The…" Maya said, flipping through her notes. "oobar?"

"Uh, no." Shinji said, shaking his head.

"A ubar…" He continued, pronouncing the word as you-bar. "...is an elected war chief. It can also mean like a warrior king who has taken and holds power through military strength. As I understand it, the commander fits the former definition. Grandfather is chief administrator, though he was ubar at one time. Tarl said the earth equivalent would be a president, though not a prime minister. He was specifically appointed himself, not as leader of a political faction."

"Okay. Would you like to tell me about what you liked to do in your free time?"

Shinji shrugged. "What any man in my position does I suppose. Most nights I read and sometimes we all went to the tavern together."

Maya had begun some research into this Gor place. She did NOT want to talk about the taverns.

"What sort of things do you like to read?"

"Oh that which would be expected. The epics, military histories, manuals of combat and strategy. Tarl sometimes had some books from Earth for me. I have read _The Book of The Five Rings_ , which I understand is native to this land. Though I read it in English of course. An interesting thesis, though I think it does concur with something a teacher of mine once said. 'There are only so many ways to strike a man.'"

"You know Shinji, there is more to life than fighting." Maya said, but the boy just shook his head.

"For the builder, the baker, and the candlestick maker perhaps, but not for a warrior. We are scholars of conflict Lady Maya, it colors our world."

"That reminds me, how are your Japanese studies coming along?"

Shinji shrugged his head below his shoulders and looked to his left, jaw clenched in an awkward frown. It was a ridiculous overreaction and Maya found herself giggling.

"Perhaps not as well as I would like."

"Hm, well in that case I will see how I can help. Moving on, I wanted to ask about what your earliest memories are…"

* * *

It was the next day and Shinji was back at school. Maya had been true to her word and this morning he had arisen with the dawn for exercises and brief run in the cool morning air. There had only been a small disagreement on the matter between himself and Captain Katsuragi but it was quickly cleared up. It had not come up in conversation previously that even by oneself it was frowned upon to do such things in the nude here. Such an odd place.

"Summer uniforms man." Kensuke said, looking out at the female students of the school. He was seated, along with Shinji, Toji, and Rei, beneath a tree on the far side of the athletic fields from the school building. It was lunch. There had not been a recent change in uniform, in fact it was rare to see anything but summer uniforms in the seemingly endless hot seasons of post-impact Japan.

"I know right." Toji said, his eyes on Hikari. She was about an errand before joining them to eat. Ever since the battle the week before, Toji had looked at his girlfriend in a new way. He'd of course always been attracted to her, now it spoke to a deeper, more atavistic part of him. Toji exhaled through clenched teeth then licked his lip as he watched her, her chest pressed up against the thin white shirt of the school's summer uniform. The vision flashed through his mind again, of taking her, _possessing_ her. Yeah...

"Meh."

Toji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida snapped around to look at Shinji, who was reclining, seated on the ground with his back against a tree. Rei sat beside him, knees together on the ground. All wore the school's warm weather uniform, a white short sleeve shirt, or blouse in Rei's case, without a jacket.

"Dude, well known fact that summer uniforms are hot." Kensuke said, as though the young gorean were refuting gravity.

"An opinion, and one I cannot agree with."

The conversation was interrupted momentarily as Sakura Suzuhara and Hikari Horaki joined them, Hikari sitting next to Toji and Sakura sitting down beside her. Shinji explained, against insisting gestures from Toji and Kensuke, what they had been speaking of and his opinion on the matter.

"Take for example Lady Rei here." Shinji said. "If I may beg your favor, would you stand and suffer a small indignity for me? I promise you nothing untoward, just an unflattering comparison."

"Yes." She said and rose to her feet in a smooth, machine-like, arc. She stood straight, her feet together, her hands loose at her sides and her shoulders neither slouched nor back, just straight. Shinji stood as well, dusting off his trousers.

"Now, and tell me if you feel uncomfortable…" He said, placing his hands on her shoulder blades and gently pressing his thumbs to her back. "Put your shoulders back, yes like that…"

Rei shivered a little as his left hand slid down her back, over her skirt and coming to rest on the bare skin of her thigh just beneath the hem.

"And just this leg, lift your foot up on your toes, knee bent…" he continued, gently pulling her hands behind her back. "And just cross your wrists, like that. Perfect, thank you."

Rei knew, on a conscious level, that she was fully clothed to an acceptable standard in her situation. However, with him posing her like this certain feelings were making themselves known, feeling which she normally kept to herself in her apartment, alone in front of the mirror. She felt exposed, on display. It was… not unpleasant.

"Now look at her. I know you believe this uniform has a certain charm, but it is drab, boring, utilitarian in nature. However, can you now deny the beauty of the girl before you?"

Rei felt an intense heat rise in her cheeks.

"Wow…. yeah, I mean no."

"Dude…" Kensuke added. To his credit, he managed not to add his private thought of 'Ayanami has nice tits'.

Hikari said nothing, even as she shifted on her knees, her thighs rubbing together.

"Oh wow Ayanami, you're really pretty." Sakura said, hands held together in front of her face.

"This is how a girl might stand on a block to be sold where I am from." Shinji concluded, stepping back back from her.

Rei gasped sharply as a vision came to her. She was not standing in the school yard, she was on a platform in front of many men, all shouting, all bidding, all wanting… her.

"Clothing matters far less than carriage." he added with finality before sitting down once more.

When the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, they bid farewell to Sakura, and the high schoolers started off for the school building. Shinji made to follow until a small, tight, hand caught him by the elbow.

"Ikari." Rei said softly and he turned to face her.

"Lady Rei, you wish to speak?"

"Aye."

"Well I am happy to oblige, though only if you will honor my request to use my given name. Ikari is a name I have only recently come to and it is not familiar to me, as I've said."

"I will do that… Shinji. May I ask a question?"

"Most certainly, and my thanks."

"Are slaves... I mean Kajira, treated well?"

"Some. It depends on many things but most of all the master and what sort of man he is."

"And you?"

"Pardon?"

"What sort of man are you? How would you treat a slave?"

"Well m'lady, that would depend on the slave. Was there a particular sort of girl you had in mind?" Shinji replied, much to her consternation. He knew why she asked, why did he play that he did not? It dawned on Rei that play was exactly what it was. He was playing with her as a predator might prey… or for that matter as a man might play with his woman. Yet knowing this did nothing to ease her own mind.

"What of… What about…" She tried to say it, but the words caught in her throat. Rei reached up and hooked her finger over the knot of her school tie, a recently acquired nervous habit.

"Hm?"

"... This one?"

"Hmmmm? What was that m'lady?"

"How would you treat this girl if she were a slave?"

"Well that is an interesting question Lady Rei." Shinji said, touching his finger to his chin. "Hmmmm… you know…"

"Yes?"

"I shall have to consider it. We shall be late to class if we dally further and I am under strict orders not to be so."

* * *

Twas the night of the celebratory dinner and Toji was somewhat worried. Dad was happy.

Now there was nothing worrisome about that in and of itself, but he was happy in a particularly chipper fashion and that meant dad was pleased with himself and THAT rarely meant anything good for Toji. Toji was keeping an eye on his father best he could as he got the rest of the house ready for the party.

They were carrying out a conversation in bursts as Toji passed the door to the kitchen.

"And you gave out all the invitations?"

"Yes, sir." Toji replied, rolling his eyes only because his father was looking the other way.

"Including Kensuke?"

"Yes, sir." Toji said, a chair in each hand. "He'll be here pretty quick I think."

"And Miss Horaki?"

"Yes dad, I gave the invitations to Kensuke, and to Hikari, and to Shinji, and to Ayanami cause Shinji asked if she could come. I gave them all out because I can remember to do four things, come on."

"I was just checking. And don't you roll your eyes at me! Now have you figured out how you are going to tell her?"

"YES, DAD!"

The doorbell rang.

"Toji, the door."

"Yeah yeah I heard. I'll get it."

"No no, wait, get that pan out of the oven, I'll get it." His father said, stepping in front of and around his son as Toji donned oven mitts.

"Miss Horaki, always a pleasure to receive you." Sora said, taking the towel from his shoulder and wiping his hand before extending it to the young lady, still in her school uniform.

"And I always feel very welcome, Mr. Suzuhara."

"Oh call me…" Sora stopped himself and looked to his son coming from the kitchen, who nodded. "Well, uh, I think my good son has something he would like to speak to you about so why don't you two head upstairs. There we go."

"Yeah, um, come on, we can talk in my room."

"Um… okay."

Once they were up the stairs in Toji's room with the door closed, Hikari spoke again.

"Toji, what's this all about?"

"Bae… I need to tell you something."

"Okay?"

"So, my family, uh, well you know we've always been kinda different, right?"

"Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with being different. Toji, I don't care if Kodama and dad don't like you."

"I know, I know. I don't care about them either… I care about what you think though and-" Toji stopped, his gaze aside as he considered his words. "And I'm worried you won't like me after I tell you what I need to tell you. But I got to be honest with you."

"Alright."

"So promise you won't freak out, okay?"

"Toji, just tell me!" Hikari said, giggling nervously. "Its me, Hikari! I love you, Toji Suzuhara, nothing is going to change that. Even if you say you're all space aliens and show me your antenna or something."

"Uh, so we don't have antenna…" Toji said, trying to smile through the awkward moment.

"Oh, I had to open my mouth." Hikari slapped her forehead. "Where are you from… dear lord, Shinji wasn't kidding about being from another planet, was he?"

Toji shook his head.

"And you are too?"

"Well, Grandpa is, but my mom and dad were both in what's called an enclave. They're like, um, immigrant communities."

"And your dad raised you that way too?"

"Yeah."

"O-okay." HIkari said, nodding and still processing all this. "So, I don't know anything about where you all are from, so I mean…"

"I'll tell you all about it, bae. Dinner tonight is going to be traditional for the homeworld, since it's for Shinji and me. And Ken too, he might as well be one of us after what happened."

"So, you aren't going to try and carry me off to repopulate your planet or anything, right?"

Toji laughed. "No no, nothing like that. Actually women get a lot of respect. No matter what they say to a guy he is obliged to take it. If a man and a woman are from the same place and she is in trouble he should treat her like she was his own sister. Especially high caste women like… well like you would be if we… y'know."

"Got mar-" Hikari began before Toji lunged forward, clapping his hand over her mouth.

"Don't say it." Toji whispered, eyes furtively scanning his room. "They could be listening."

Hikari pulled his hand from her mouth by the wrist. "What are you talking about, who?"

"Dad and gramps. You don't know. I mean you know they like you, but you don't know what happens when you aren't here. If they even think we would both be okay with it they would drag us down to city hall tomorrow."

"So you don't want to…?"

"No no no, babe, I do, I just don't think we should y'know right now, y'know? We should finish school, get jobs, all that stuff. Plus with what is going on, I mean I would feel awful if your wedding got ruined by a giant monster attacking."

"But we are gonna… y'know?"

"I… I mean yeah, that is if y'know you'll… if you're game."

"I'm game. Are you?"

"Y-yeah."

"Then once this is all over, we are out of school, we have jobs, and no more giant monsters, you promise we will… y'know?"

"Yeah… I mean I promise."

"Good"

HIkari pulled at Toji's hand until he held it open for her and she placed her hand in his. They were silent for a few moments, only looking into eachother's eyes. This was big, this was important.

Sitting on the floor, two teens from circumstances so different committing one another to the destiny of the other.

Hikari giggled. "So does this mean... we're engaged?"

Toji smiled. "I guess we are." He kept the smile, despite a vision of Hikari in chains and lying at his feet asserting itself.

They stepped out into the hall, hand in hand. When they descended the stairs together, his father, grandfather, sister and even Kensuke were waiting for them.

"Congratulations, son." Sora said then nodded to Hikari with a wink. "Lady Hikari."

"Congratulations, m'boy."

"Congratulations, nii-san!"

"Congratulations, buddy!" Kensuke said with a smile. Then the formally bespectacled boy leaned over to the younger Suzuhara child. "Uh, Sakura…" He whispered.

"What?" She quietly replied.

"What's going on?"

Sakura turned and swung, slapping Kensuke across the back of his skull. "FOOL!"

Kensuke was holding onto his head, still wincing, while Sakura threw her arms around Hikari.

"Oh god, she hits so hard…"

"Hikari! I am so happy you're gonna be my big sister! And I won't be like your sisters, they're shit. We are gonna be awesome sisters!"

"Sakura, language." Sora Suzuhara stepped forward and gave Hikari a hug with one arm. "Well, I for one am just glad you did not run out the door screamin'. I know we are different but you know we like you plenty and I don't think my son would be much more fortunate than to have a woman like you in his life."

"Thank you, Mr.-"

"Call me Sora. Or dad, whatever you like. Hey Toji, with that done why don't you get that special box for your sister."

Toji took a moment before he finally let go of Hikari's hand. He bounded up the stairs two at a time and swiftly returned with a cardboard dress box. The gathered moved to the dining room and crowded around Sakura with the box in front of her on the low table. Small deft hands pulled away the table, lifted the lid, and pushed away soft paper wrapping.

"Oh my... Are these mom's veils?!" Sakura lifted silks from the package. Hikari marveled at the work. Each was paper thin yet opaque and embellished with intricate embroidery. There were many colors, but purple and red dominated. So light and thin were the garments that as Sakura lifted layer upon layer from the box they soon covered the table and yet the box seemed no less full.

"Yeah, yeah they are. I knew you'd remember. She uh, she'd of wanted you to have him." Sora said, hand on his daughter's shoulder. There was a hitch in voice, as though he might soon cry.

"Oh dad, thank you. Thank you so much, I don't even know what do with them, I…"

"Why don't you start by taking them upstairs with Lady Hikari and you can try'em on. I think you're gonna have to share, seein' as your momma would have liked her son's bride to have them too."

"Yes, papa." Sakura said. Hikari felt the girl's hand around hers for only a moment before she was nearly yanked off her feet up the stairs, the table cleared, box and all, in Sakura's other hand.

Hikari was catching her breath while Sakura laid out the garments, folding each into a hand sized rectangle before placing it on the bed. Looking around, Hikari realized she had not actually been in Toji's sister's room before. It was nothing special, more remarkable in its plainness really. There was tan carpet, not tatami, a desk, a closet, and the single bed. The furniture was all just wood painted white. There weren't even any posters, just her schoolbag by her desk, books and supplies on the desk, and her Shiai-yo, the wooden spear for naginata practice, propped up in the corner.

"Ooo, mama's hair pins too, nice…"

The spear reminded Hikari of Toji dropping out of the kendo club two years before. He had never explained why. The boken still sat in the corner in his room. Maybe it had something to do with all of this with his family...

"What color do you like?"

"Hm?" Sakura speaking had jostled Hikari out of her memories

"What's your favorite color?" She repeated, sweeping her hand over the enormous variety of silk covering the bed. It was truly covered. Even folded so small, each garment overlapped at least one other.

"Um, I like yellow."

Quick hands pulled the yellows and it struck Hikari that Toji's mother might have been something of a fashion plate.

"Yeah…" Sakura said, the tiniest bit of annoyance at her newfound wardrobe in her voice. "What kind of yellow?"

Hikari stood beside Sakura and looked over the half dozen silks ranging from lemon to goldenrod. Hikari picked one out of the middle, a plain canary color without too much embroidery.

"So… how does one wear these?"

"Um, I'll be honest, I dunno." Sakura said with a shrug.

"But I thought…" Hikari said.

"My mom died when I was really young okay? And it is not like she wore this stuff all the time. We are in hiding, these would stick out."

"Well…" Hikari picked up the yellow silk and held it above her head by one edge, letting it fall open. It nearly touched the carpet and was almost as wide as her shoulders. "I guess wrapping it or using pins you could make it do about anything."

"I'll see what I can find at the library. Here…" Sakura unfurled a violet silk and folded it once along its length then made a loop and tossed it back over her head. She wrapped each end around her neck and over her head until her face with framed by snug, but not tight, silk. Her bangs peaked out from beneath the fabric.

"That looks okay, right?"

"Oh, yeah it looks great." Hikari said, not sure the words to use. It was very pretty and it even seemed to look very natural on Sakura. It was still just weird though.

"Great." The younger girl said, snatching the yellow silk from Hikari's hands. "Now let's do you."

"Oh, I don't think-"

"Come on Hikari, you are going to be part of the family. Besides, maybe Toji might find the thought of a veiled woman..." Sakura lifted the silk across her nose to hide her face but for her eyes. "...Alluring."

* * *

The doorbell rang and Sora Suzuhara stepped into the entryway. A quick check of the peephole and he saw a young man in a school uniform, slight but strong looking. So this was the mighty warrior. Sora threw the lock and swung open the door, arms wide.

"Tal, Jula Rasta!… I mean hello Captain Katsuragi, I was not expecting you." Sora said, Misato having stepped in front of him from where she had to have been beside the door and out of sight.

"Good evening, Chef."

"Thank you." Sora looked over Misato's shoulder at Shinji, who was performing a gesture Sora knew well from his son. The combined shrug and lifting of the hands that said 'Sorry, I tried but there was nothing for it.'

"Um, Shinji did not say he had a plus one."

"I insisted."

"Right… well I mean we should have enough food it's just…"

"You're one of them too, aren't you?"

Sora Suzuhara groaned and ran one hand through his short hair as he waved Misato inside, Shinji following. "Well I guess the cat is getting out the bag every which way tonight. Can you please not spread it any further at the office though? We ain't spyin' or anything."

"I understand that and because you do not work with anything sensitive, I can happily say NERV is not concerned."

"Most excellent. Now come come, sit. My home may be humble but tonight I promise you will have a feast the likes of which you have never seen, Captain." Sora said, then turned to Shinji. "And you, young warrior!"

Sora grabbed Shinji by the wrist and pulled him by the arm into a handshake, slapping his other hand on Shinji's shoulder. "You will eat like a king tonight."

Shinji returned the handshake and placed his left hand on the elder man's shoulder. "Mr. Suzuhara, to share the kettle of a friend is to dine with a Ubar."

"Shinji m'boy, if my daughter was a little older I'd marry her off to you but I'll settle for you being a friend of the family. My house is yours, come come."

Sora brushed them both along once shoes were doffed, into the living space of the first floor. The first thing that hit Misato was not what her eyes saw, but the odor of spices that hit her nose, some familiar and many not, so firmly it was as if stepping face first into a wall. It appeared most of the furniture had been moved elsewhere and in its place was a low table, of appropriate height to eat while sitting on the pillows situated in front of each place setting.

Misato had read up on the boy seated at the far end of the table since meeting him after that debacle with the fourth. Toji Suzuhara, sixteen years old, part of the special class at school. He was seated with his legs crossed and leaning back with one arm straight to support himself, big stupid grin on his face. She didn't recognize the girl seated to his right and wrapped around his free arm. Cute young thing, unremarkable but for the freckles and the pale yellow headscarf wrapped loosely around her brown hair. She was wearing a school uniform and had her legs tucked to her side. On her other side was an older man, broad of shoulder with big arms and steely grey hair with a dark blue hakama draped over his shoulders. The boy's grandfather presumably.

"Pappy, this is Shinji, the warrior we've heard so much about…" Sora said, looking at the pair. Misato did not miss the way his smile turned distinctly sour when he said. "And his plus one."

"Oh, hello young lady!" The elder Suzuhara began. "Might I say you do look very-"

"She's from work, pa."

"Strong, independent, and nice tonight." Grandpa Suzuhara finished without skipping a single beat.

Toji and the girl were quickly pushing themselves up to say hello when another familiar face, one Kensuke Aida, stepped in from the kitchen with his fingers spidered over cans and glasses.

"Tal, cap." Kensuke said, walking by her without even a glance in her direction.

Now up until this point nothing had been off putting, strictly speaking, about tonight. Unpleasantly surprising but not really in a my-life-is-too-consistently-weird-to-shock-anymore way, and nothing uncomfortable. But this boy had previously been scared to shit of her and now he just… strolled on by. He wasn't a subordinate, and it wasn't like respect was required in a legal way, but this was Japan and… and it was just weird.

Kensuke started distributing drinks in front of the three already seated then sat down to Toji's left with one place setting between them.

Misato said hello to everyone. Yet everyone told her 'tal', the gorean greeting. Even though nobody present was more than a couple steps from any other, each of the men, well boys mostly, lifted their right hand to wave.

"Hello Captain, I mean, uh tal. I'm Hikari Horaki." Hikari said with a casual bow, which Misato returned with a nod. The big kid, her boyfriend Toji, quickly grabbed the girl's wrist.

"Bae, you have to show your open hand when you say that."

"Oh! Okay." The Horaki girl laughed nervously then did as instructed and repeated. "Tal, Captain." Then looked at the boy questioningly.

"When free people greet each other, we show we are not holding a weapon." Toji explained.

"Okay, got it." Hikari said with a nod.

"So… Misato raised one finger and pointed to Toji, then Hikari, and then Toji again. "I know you are but you…?"

"Toji um, explained to me where his family is from just tonight."

"Oh, I see." Misato said with a socially acceptable smile. 'And you haven't run screaming into the street, how lovely for you both' is what she wanted to say.

The doorbell rang once more as a setting was being made for Misato at one corner of the table. Rei Ayanami arrived as the final guest, still in her school uniform. As greetings and introductions were made, it did not escape Misato's notice that she quickly put herself by Shinji's side and did not stray. Ever since the fourth this had been the way of things. If the pilots were together, Rei was hanging on Shinji's arm. Seating arrangements were modified so that Rei sat between Shinji and Kensuke and soon food was brought in from the kitchen. And brought in. And brought in. And then there was promises of more once some space cleared up.

For the love of god, Misato thought. Did Chef Suzuhara know how to make less food or was he always stuck on mess hall portions?

Then came the wine. Misato raised an eyebrow when everyone got a cup, not a glass, even the younger sister. She could not be older than twelve.

"Now, a toast!" Sora Suzuhara said, finally taking his seat beside his father and daughter. "To these fine young men, these warriors, who stood between us and destruction."

Well I'll drink to that Misato thought. The wine was disgusting. It was the cheap young stuff to begin with but someone had spiced the hell out of it and it was steaming hot. But the table cheered and raised their cups.

"Tar Sardar Gor." He added. The other Suzuharas, Shinji, and Kensuke repeated after and drank.

Misato raised her cup. "And everyone else at NERV…" She tilted her cup towards the chef. "Without whom none of it would have been possible."

There was no cheer in response, just a murmur. Then the elder Suzuhara, the Chef's father spoke.

"Worthy work but to put it bluntly and pardon the pun, Toji and his sword brothers were the ones on the sharp end of it. Now Toji and Kensuke did not do this thing because it was their job or that they had promised to or even that they would be rewarded. They just did it and got dumped out once y'all were done with them. Pardon if our focus is unduly on the individuals involved then, captain."

The steel haired man was staring at her. No that was not right, Misato thought. The way he looked at her made her feel like a bug under a magnifying glass, sun and all. It was silent for a moment then, until Shinji spoke.

"Is that candy glazed tarsk?" Shinji said, pointing at a dish down the table form himself.

"Well it's actually pork, but same preparation. Here try some…" Sora said, picking up the plate to pass it.

"Don't mind if I do."

The room quickly filled with noise again. Misato had ended up between Toji's father and Kensuke on a corner, the table having been set for one less. Shinji had become more animated than Misato could remember seeing him in a social situation and while he had begun in English he had transitioned into extremely rapid Gorean. Everyone at the table was looking to him, but Misato could see by the expressions who could and could not understand. The Suzuharas were all reacting and emoting at the same time, they understood what he was saying. Kensuke Aida looked like he was getting some but not all of what was said. The effort was plain across his face. Rei was… difficult to read. Regardless of understanding, she looked to be hanging on every word. The Horaki girl too, though her attention was towards her beau, Toji.

Three seats to Misato's left was the younger Suzuhara child, Sakura. Like Hikaril she wore a headscarf, but it was wound about her face more snuggly, more naturally. The elder girl had pulled it down so it was hanging around her neck and shoulders, but the violet silk Sakura wore stayed as though it was meant to be there.

Though Shinji was doing much of the speaking, Sakura did contribute here and there. From the tone of her voice it sounded like questions. However she was the only woman at the table speaking. As far as Misato could tell neither of the other girls could understand and they were both silent. She herself had the same problem.

Well, time to do something about that.

Misato cleared her throat loudly then said. "Um, pardon me if I may."

The guests' faces turned to Misato. "Yes, Captain?" Shinji said.

"It's just that I don't understand your language and I don't think I am the only one. Would you all mind speaking Japanese or English? I mean I want to hear what you are saying, just I don't understand your words."

"Oh." Shinji said, straightening up a bit. "That would seem quite discourteous I imagine. Well, is English suitable for everyone? I apologise that I am not yet quite comfortable with Japanese."

There were quiet assents around the table and Shinji and the Suzuhara boy both turned to the women beside them and apologized. It seemed settled then. Until Sakura leaned over, her palms down on the table, and looked Misato in the eye.

"I think that a stranger uninvited and accepted inside with courtesy should return it threefold. Not make demands of the hosts and their friends."

Chef Suzuhara slapped his forehead with the palm of his broad hand. "Sakura…"

The grandfather held his fist to his mouth as though he meant to cough but it did not hide his smile from Misato.

The… precocious girl began to speak again.

"You know Captain, our language has a funny quirk. You see stranger and-" She stopped only when her father's hand came down over her mouth.

"Sakura Suzuhara you will stop and say nothing more of that. Captain Katsuragi is my superior and I welcomed her into my home and you will abide by it."

"Oh no, I want to hear what the girl has to say." Misato said and the girl's eyes turned to positive rage above her father's hand.

"Sora, my friend…" Shinji said, rising from where he sat and untangling himself from Rei's arms. "Perhaps I might speak with the good captain alone out front while you speak with the Lady Sakura and we might educate both on this misunderstanding. I beg your favor."

Sora Suzuhara nodded. "That would be well."

"Excellent. Captain, if you would…" Shinji was hauling Misato up by the arm before she could begin to rise herself and they were quickly out the front door.

"Captain, I must warn you that the best thing you can do right now is make a rapid apology."

"Shinji, I am not going to apologize for asking you to speak so I can understand."

"No, no, that is not it. Captain there are two things at work here. First, Lady Sakura is a free woman. We as goreans accord free woman of the same city as ourselves as much respect as possible. Despite her age, Lady Sakura is the woman of the house and you called her a girl. On Gor we would never call a free female child as girl if we had any respect whatsoever. If you want to be seen as the more mature person you should be dismissive of the scorn, not confrontational. Address her properly, make a short apology then compliment her, her father, do something to ingratiate yourself. Raise a toast to the host's intelligent and perceptive daughter, something!"

"Okay." Misato said after a deep breath. "I can understand that. What else?"

"What Lady Sakura was about to say was that while on Earth you differentiate between an enemy and a stranger, and yes I very much understand the difference, the gorean language does not. We are not a welcoming people Captain. That which we do not know at some level, the other, is a potential threat by default. Do you understand what she might have been trying to say now?"

"Yeah I mean… Oh… Oooooh." Misato said as realization hit her. Coming to dinner unannounced was one thing but these people lived in hiding about their true nature. It was hiding in plain sight but for someone used to keeping that secret walking in and just… and then calling out the host!

"Oh god, Shinji how do I apologize to these people?"

"Just say you are sorry!"

"I don't want to make it worse!"

 _90 seconds later…_

"... And a toast." Misato raised her cup of the disgusting wine. "To the Lady Sakura, a very perceptive and well spoken woman. And to her father…" Misato nodded to the chef, then to his father. "And grandfather for raising her."

The table raised their drinks to that and Misato sat down, the situation ameliorated. The conversation returned to the former topic, in English this time.

"As I was saying, Tarl had now been returned to Gor by the Sardar without guidance or explanation and having found Ko-Ro-Ba destroyed he began to wander towards the mountains to take it up with the Sardar themselves."

"Ko-Ro-Ba was destroyed?" Rei asked, raising her head from where it had been on Shinji's left arm.

"Yes, in blue fire by the Sardar." Shinji explained, which only made Rei tilt her head.

"But are you not from Ko-Ro-Ba?" Rei asked.

"Yes, however it was later rebuilt."

"I see." She said and, satisfied with his answer, again leaned her cheek upon his shoulder.

"Well, to continue, he came upon a city called Tarna. Now Tarna has, well had, very strange customs."

"It is ruled by women exclusively, is it not?" Misato turned to see it was the grandfather who had spoke up, the first time since he had rebutted to her toast to NERV.

Shinji nodded. "Yes, well it was. Tarl became entrapped there and as tends to be the case with my father, chaos ensued. The tatrixes of Tarna and the masters behind them, were deposed."

The grandfather gave a loud affirmative grunt and drank from his cup. "Hm, seems I am out of wine."

"As am I."

"Getting low myself."

"Certainly, refills all around then. Except you Sakura. Get something else."

"Yes, dad."

The Suzuhara children began shuffling to their feet. Rei rose as well.

"Oh, Lady Rei." Toji said, using the title in a way that sounded somewhat awkward, even to Misato's ear. She was out of wine herself but wanted no more of the stuff. "You are a guest, we will take care of it."

"I would like to help, please." Rei said then looked to Shinji. "If it allowed."

"Well, many hands short work." Toji said. Rei swiftly returned with a pitcher of the hot wine and made her way straight to Shinji's side, swiftly kneeling and refilling his cup. She did not dislike the wine herself. The taste was strong, overpowering compared to the water she usually took with meals, but the warmth that it spread through her body was not at all unpleasant. She refilled her own cup after Shinji's.

Drinks refilled, the conversation began again. This time with Misato.

"So this Tarna place was ruled all by women?" The captain asked as Shinji sipped at his cup.

"Truly." Shinji said having set down his cup. "There was a council as well as an executive who was called a tatrix."

"Well I imagine that it was quite different from other places, with the way your society tends to be so… patriarchal." Misato said.

"Oh yes, Tarl remarked on that. He said as soon as he entered it was clear something was wrong." Shinji replied.

"What, he could feel there was a woman in charge?"

"No no, not like that. The system of laws in place discouraged many behaviors that would characterize a normal city. For example, speaking loudly in the markets was a disruption of the peace. Normally, as I mentioned when we first visited a market you may remember, you haggle, you argue, you and shopkeeper may become quite loud. In Tarna, you negotiated silently, by finger sign, or risk being removed by the guards and sentenced to hard labor."

"So what happened?" Misato asked. Kensuke spoke before Shinji could.

"Tarl Cabot wrote about it, I know what happened."

"Oh, very good Kensuke. I should like to hear how he told it." Shinji said, begging his friend on with a tap of his cup on the table. "What did the man himself say."

"Well he got set up." Kensuke said. "Got sent to prison. Now I've read all his books and the thing I have learned is that sticking Tarl Cabot in a prison is the absolutely worst tactical decision you can make. And I guess it all started here. He got his team out of a deathtrap, overthrew the prison then marched on the city."

"And that is attested to in the histories." Shinji said then raised his cup to drink.

For the first time since the meal began, Hikari spoke up. "What is it like now? Since then."

Misato watched Shinji smile, then Aida smiled just the same way. It was not a pleasant smile. It looked cruel.

"Tarna is still very unique." Shinji said. "In fact there are no free women in Tarna."

"So what, it's all men?" Hikari asked.

There was laughter around the table, from all but Misato and Hikari. Rei apparently got the joke, she was tittering with one hand held over her lips. What happened in that place?"

"No, Lady Hikari." Shinji said. "I said no free women. Every woman in Tarna was enslaved, well nearly every. The tatrix alone remains free. It is the law that should a free woman enter the city and stay past sundown, she is likewise forfeit."

"E-enslaved?" Hikari said, looking quickly between her boyfriend and the faces of the table. "Toji, what… do you?"

Misato took this moment to speak. "All Gorean cultures practice slavery, Miss Horaki."

"Oh… I didn't know." Hikari said, wrapping her arms around herself and shifting her weight away from Toji.

Toji was scrambling for something to fix this. He knew he was going to have to tell her eventually, but this was not the right time. Kensuke came to his rescue.

"Yeah they do, but from what I read it is not as prevalent overall as it was on Earth until a couple hundred years ago. Something like three percent of the overall population are slaves. Whereas under the Romans it was like forty percent and here in Japan most peasants were close to chattel property and so slaves."

Toji felt like he could kiss Kensuke right there. Shinji began to speak and he could all but see Hikari coming back.

"That is correct. There is some raiding and such but in my city for example I would guess with some surety that of a score of slaves of both genders nineteen likely entered that state by judicial action. We have little use for prisons."

"O...Okay." Hikari said. Toji wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

"So don't worry about it, alright? You got me and you got the rest of us and we don't live on Gor. It's not going to happen to you."

"Hey, Aida." Hikari said after a moment. "You said you read about this. There are books about this place?"

Kensuke looked away, his jaw clenched around a groan. Telling the class rep about some of your favorite reading material was not his best idea of late. Or ever.

"Yeah…"

"I want to learn about your people, Toji. These books could help with that." Hikari said, looking up at her boyfriend with hopeful eyes. She really did wish to know more. Toji and his family had never been anything but kind to her and she had a growing conviction that she would be a part of it.

"My teacher's books are... highly stylized, but I haven't heard of any other sources available on this world." Shinji said.

"I have digital copies." Rei said. "I will send them to you along with my notes. I find them very informative and compelling."

"Oh thank you, Ayanami." Hikari said, smiling once again. "I am so happy you have all been so accepting of me." Hikari looked to the Suzuharas, each in turn. "You all already feel like another family to me."

"And you us, Lady Hikari."

"I guess you can understand the life of slaves with your family, right?" Sakura said, annoying her father once more for the evening and getting a pop on the ear for her trouble. "Ow!"

"Sakura, we are going to have a talk about what we say to others."

"No, it's okay. I guess I kind of can." Hikari said with a sad smile. "You can love someone and they you, and still you get worked to the bone."

"Your sisters are awful, Hikari." Toji said. He lifted his hand from her shoulder and nudging her cheek till she turned to look up at him. "Don't you worry, I won't treat you like that."

"Yeah. You're right like always, and thanks. I know you wouldn't."

Misato rolled her eyes and fished her phone out of her jacket pocket. Girl hears they enslave cities for women being in charge and is happy to be part of the family. She deserves whatever is coming to her. With the phone beneath the table Misato sent a text and a moment later the phone began to ring.

"Oh, sorry everyone, looks like duty calls." Misato said, rising from the table.

"Is there another emergency, Captain?" Shinji said, he and Rei both looking up at Misato with determined faces.

"No no, nothing like that. Hey I will see you when I get home later, okay? Thank you again for dinner!"

And with that Misato slipped into her shoes and out the door, answering her phone on the way.

"Good response time, Hyuga."

"No problem, Captain Katsuragi, what's up?"

"Awful dinner. I'm going to come into the office for a bit."

It was late and dark by the time the party was coming to an end. Sakura tried to offer Rei another of her mother's veils but the red-eyed girl politely declined. Veiled as a free woman was not to be her place. Hikari, fearful for its well being, entrusted the one she had been given to Sakura for safe keeping. Never knew what Nozomi would get into snooping in her room.

The men exchanged handshakes and embraced. Shinji was declared welcome always in the house and told that should he ever hunger for food like home he need only ask. Kensuke likewise, now fully trusted, was welcome at anytime for conversation and a drink.

Final impressions being the longest lasting, Shinji took the time to, with a slight bow to be at her level, lift Sakura's hand to kiss her fingers and to bid the lady of the household good night and his protection should she require it. The way she ran upstairs with her cheeks aflame had been cute.

Now he stood outside with Rei, looking up at the clear night sky. How strange it was here that the electric lights drowned out the stars.

"Shinji…"

"Yes, Lady Rei?"

"The captain may be gone for some time."

"Indeed."

"I would… I mean should you like…" She said, becoming flustered. Why was it so difficult to say these things to him?

"Lady Rei, I would be happy to escort you home."

Rei spent the time as they walked and rode the train clinging to his arm. He was warm and made her feel safe. He was warmth and safety. She wanted him to be her keeper and her protector. In fact for much of the journey she closed her eyes and allowed him to guide her. When he brought her to her door, she invited him in and in he came. Leaving them where they now stood, looking at each other across her small space.

Rei felt nervous. This was a thrill in itself, as such intense feelings had become now. It did not help that whenever she could bear to look him in the face, his smile made her feel naked.

"I wonder, if I might, and I do not wish to impose upon you…" She said.

"Lady Rei, say what you wish to say. I promised to always answer, did I not?"

"And you will not hold these questions against me?"

"Of course not."

"Before, I asked you how you would treat me if I were a slave in your possession."

"You did."

"Have you an answer?"

"I do, but I require you to answer a question first."

"I asked first, to what end is my answer required?"

"Because if you wish to hear my answer, you will tell me what I want to know." He said, turning the one chair in the apartment, beside the small desk, to face her before sitting down. Surely Shinji had looked at her before, even in lust, but not in this way. His eyes upon her stirred certain feelings that had come to her solely under the safety of darkness and solitude before. For the first time she was very conscious of how she might appear to him. It was as though his eyes were looking through her but no… They were only looking through anything she might cover herself with. Whether it be manners, her words, or her clothes.

Rei shifted her weight and clasped her hands together in front of her waist.

"Very well. Please ask."

"My thanks. Be advised that I already know very well the answer to the question I am about to ask…"

Her fingers twitched. When his eyes followed the movement, she raised her hand, running her fingers through her hair and looking away from his intense gaze.

"Have you dreamed of slavery yet?"

"How did you know that?"

"Answer me and I might tell you."

"Yes."

"And you wish to ask me of it, do you not?"

"Yes." Rei whispered. Her stoicism had left and before him she was the girl she had dreamed of being. Her body was flush with heat and she all but shook in anxiety. Or was it anticipation?

"Do you now wish to know how I would treat you if I owned you?"

Shinji stood. Rei's left foot rose to step back.

"Do not move away."

Her foot returned to the floor.

"Now answer."

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes… Yes I wish to know."

"And what is it you wish to know?"

"I want to know how you would treat this girl if she were yours."

Shinji took another step across the small room, leaving less than a pace between them. Rei looked at his hands. Strong, rough. If he but lifted his arm he could grab her, but he did not.

"I would treat you as all slaves should be treated."

He advanced another half step. Inches between them. The tingling began in her toes and rose up her body. She had thought of, dreamed of, these sensations, but to experience them fully had her on the edge of panic.

"I would take every modesty from you. I would bring the sensual, salacious creature that lives in every woman out. You could never lie again, because a slave girl hides nothing. Every inhibition and restraint stripped away to reveal your true being."

Rei did not even notice his hand rise until he held her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"That is how I would treat you. Is that the answer you were looking for, Lady Rei?"

She tried to speak. To tell him that it was more than she had ever imagined, than she had ever dreamed. What came out was a soft squeak and a very small nod that his grip, light as it was, permitted.

"Is there something you wish to say now that your question has been answered?"

"Ta-ta-ta-thhhhiiiiiis…"

"Take your time."

"This… this... This girl submi-"

His swift hand moved from her chin to her lips. "Ssh"

"Bu-"

"You and I have duties to fulfill. You are too important to be taken away from those. I cannot own you in that way."

Rei wanted to cry. Until he said that it felt like this had all been building to something but now it was like she had been dropped off a high ledge. She whimpered.

"However…"

Hope.

"There is nothing to be ashamed of for a free woman to desire to be treated in that manner, for a night. Will that do? For now?"

"Yes. Yes, master."

"Ah ah ah. You will say it right. Master, in my language, is Vana'she. Now again, properly."

"Aye, Vana'she."

He smiled and her whole world was made.

"Very good."

Her arms flew around his shoulders as she pressed herself to his body. This was what had been missing. This shining light, this fulfillment. His hands were warm and strong as he held her, lifting her against his body with just one arm while his other worked his fingers through her hair.

"I will call you simply slave girl for now, kajira. Perhaps a name might be earned."

"Aye, Vana'she."

"But for now, you are wearing far too much clothing." He said and firmly pushed her away as he stepped back. Rei whined and it was a wanton, animal sound.

"Are you going to strip for me girl, or is undressing pleasingly beyond a girl from Earth?"

With shaking hands Rei reached for the red ribbon tied through her collar. She worked and tugged but her quaking fingers could not manage the knot. When even grasping her blouse in her own fingers proved too difficult, he blessedly took her by the wrists and pulled her hands aside. To have him in control brought peace, and she ceased to shake.

"S-sorry, I…"

"Do not speak until spoken to." The words were firm, but his voice was soft, quiet. He hooked one finger into the tie and pulled towards himself, drawing her to his body, and up, forcing her gaze to his face. His eyes were beautiful deep blue.

"Are you a slave girl tonight?"

"Aye, vana'she."

"Until the dawn?"

"Until you free me, vana'she."

"If you are a slave then my gaze is not yours to meet, as pretty as your eyes are."

With his hand beneath her chin, she could only lower her eyes.

"I complemented you, _girl_." The sharp tug made her jump and gasp. "Aren't you going to give thanks?"

"Thank… How should I thank, vana'she?"

"You learn quickly. The word is jashi."

"Jashi, vana'she."

"Well done." Deft fingers were opening the buttons of her blouse. As soon as there was room, his hand was inside, pulling her breasts out of her brassiere. Rei shuddered and moaned, then squealed when he took one nipple between his fingers and tugged. With her tie keeping her head up he leaned forward, hot breath on flushed skin . Without thinking she began to squirm in his grasp, crying out with near silent whimpers when he reined her in between the pressure on her neck and his hand at her breast.

"My people have a word for girls like you, slave. We call them hot. The most shameless, wanton slaves are hot girls. At the slightest provocation they are ready to plead for a master's attention."

"P-pleeeeeease…"

"You beg so well. Is that what you are, girl? A hot slut?"

As much as she could do so, Rei swiftly nodded.

"Speak."

"Yes!"

He drove the tips of his fingers into her breast and twisted. Rei yelped in pain, but as she exhaled it was a whimpering moan.

"Speak fully, girl."

"Yes, this girl is a hot slut, vana'she!"

What followed was a blur. She made no effort, chose no movement of her own. He moved her, undressed her, and took her to the floor. Not the bed, right there though it was, the floor. She did not resist, she could not resist. The concrete was cold on her back, his body was warm against her front. When he kissed her, he bit down on her lip so hard she could taste blood.

* * *

"I'm home!... Shinji?" Misato kicked off her shoes.

"Where is he, kid should be back by now." She gumbled. "Shinji are you here?"

After no answer and a quick search, she pulled out her cell phone.

"Connect me with the surveillance detail on the third child… No, I want to speak with them directly, make it quick… Hey, where is he?... What is he still doing at the her place?… No, don't approach. Last thing we need to do is break the trust we've built by showing you're there. I'll go, let me know if anything changes."

Twenty minutes later, Misato had a light in one hand as she made her way through the building where the first child lived. She had to, none of the hall lights worked and there was crap everywhere. The hell was with this place anyway, why was she housed here? She would get answers from Ritsuko later, but sounds drifting from down the hall were providing the answer she came here for.

The screaming could have been something else, but the moaning. And the growls. A good time was being had with no effort at all to hide it. Shit, living in an empty building had its perks. She made her way to the only door with light coming from below it.

This was going to be weird, but it was just two teenagers doing it. She would be mature, a little disapproving, maybe crack a joke. Make sure they knew if they were going to do it to do it safely. She just hoped she wasn't going to have to give the birds and the bees to an alien. Or Rei.

"Fori!" She heard what must be Shinji bark from inside. Oh my someone really was having fun. She lifted her hand to knock.

"Neshuk! Neshuk, vana'she!" Came Rei's voice, shouting in what a bodice ripper romance might call a scream of ecstasy.

Okaaaaaay Misato thought.

She held her hand up, fingers curled, but did not knock. Just two teenagers, nothing you haven't seen before, Misato. Just be the mature adult here.

"Fori sosta, n tha chrismopillio a shimo!"

Alright, that is quite enough. She knocked three time sharply.

"Ah ah ah, eyes on me girl, that is not your concern."

Oh, not her concern, huh?

"Shinji, Rei, it's Misato, I know what you are doing, just open up."

The sound which followed was something between a barking dog and a bear. His bare feet stomping across the floor was clearly audible. And then the door opened.

"Captain, do you mind?"

He looked as angry as he sounded, itself abundantly clear despite polite words. He was also quite naked. As well, the sudden interruption had done nothing to dampen his body's enthusiasm.

"Gah! Oh my god Shinji, you can't just answer the door with a…"

"I was presently going to put it to good use, and you are the one intruding."

"And what am I intruding on exactly? I could hear what you two were saying."

"And so?"

"What have you done to her?"

"Nothing! Captain, there is nothing going wrong here besides your interruption."

"I'll be the judge of that. Rei, are you alright?"

Misato barged past and Shinji held his forehead in one hand, looking down as his arousal began to wane.

"... kai ekei pigainei…" He grumbled. There it goes.

"Rei!"

The first child was picking herself off the floor on shaking legs when the captain was passing the third. She was naked for a red ribbon tie around her neck. She was also sporting several positively glowing hickies.

"Captain. I am fine. Please leave."

"Uh uh, no no no, you two are caught, it's time to talk about this."

"No it is not." Rei replied.

"Rei?"

"Captain, please leave my home, I am busy. You have interrupted"

"Yeah, gettin' busy. No, I need answers AND Shinji is leaving with me."

"For what reason should I be leaving with you, Captain?" Shinji said, joining them in the main space of the small apartment. The absurdity of the situation did not escape Misato Katsuragi. She was standing here arguing with two naked teenagers.

"Because I said so!"

"I fail to see how this is a military matter."

"Shinji! I am your superior officer, both of yours' superior officer mind you. I am giving you an order."

"This is clearly my own time, and Lady Rei's! I have been given no order for me to have violated on this matter."

"I am giving you an order right now!"

Rei looked at them as they bickered. Shinji was taller than the captain, but he was barefoot and she in heels, so the height difference was not great as they yelled at each other nose to nose.

"If you want to fight this so bad, perhaps I should call the commander." Misato snapped.

"HA! I beg your favor that you do! Perhaps he will have some sense and declare this for the farce it is!" Shinji replied, chest puffed out with his hands in fists.

"Fine!"

"Very well!"

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! PROCEED TO YOUR ASSIGNED SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. I REPEAT, PROCEED TO YOUR ASSIGNED SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. ANGEL INBOUND! ANGEL INBOUND!

Shinji was suddenly, insufferably, and not quite deservedly, smug. "It seems our argument has been ended."

"GRAH! Get clothes on, both of you! And this is not over!"

* * *

 **CERN, Switzerland - 1998**

"I-I-I I am not alright! How did you find us?!" Yui screeched at Tarl.

"Found you? Yui, I wasn't looking for you."

Yui relaxed. Just a little. It could be a ruse but Tarl Cabot was not a man known for subterfuge. In fact what he was known for was spreading chaos, panic, and disorder like a bull in a china shop. Drunk. With a mace.

"Then why are you here?" Yui asked. She crouched and began to pick up her things, pawing for them as she was still looking up at him.

"I am meeting a friend. She works here too." Tarl replied. He squatted and began to help.

One incredulous eyebrow perked up. "She?"

"Yes, she?" Tarl replied, annoyance creeping into his voice at her tone.

"Tarl Cabot, do you really expect me to believe you, of all the misogynistic pigs on Gor, has a woman for a friend?"

"Yui, I daresay I am a changed man since we last met. I have her to thank for it in fact. We met when I was here on business after you and Gendo had already left."

"Hmph, I'll believe it when I have proof."

That proof called out across the street.

"Tarl, darling!" The voice was loud, more than a little grating to Yui's ears with a slight German accent. Yui looked up. Oh good god it was Dr. Kyoko Zeppelin Shikinami. Her copper hair belied her temper but and she was a wizard in her field, but Yui swore she must be a blond sometimes.

Wait… darling? She was… They were! No...

Tarl gave over Yui's papers then stood, turning in time to take Kyoko by the shoulders and kiss their hellos.

"My love, it has been too long as ever." Tarl was saying as Yui stood. Kyoko, a yellow dress beneath her white coat, had to give a little jump to wrap her arms over Tarl's neck.

"You have made me wait a year before Tarl, a few months is nothing." Her feet returning to the ground, Kyoko only now was noticing Yui.

"Oh, Dr. Ikari, I'm sorry I did not see you in my excitement. Did my boyfriend cause you to drop your things? He can be so clumsy." Kyoko said, taking Tarl's hand in her's and looking up at him with… and this somewhat mystified Yui as she could not remember ever having seen someone ever showing this emotion towards Tarl Cabot, genuine affection.

Boyfriend? No, no, no, no, no, no NOPE. She didn't know. She couldn't know! She was blissfully ignorant of the unfathomable danger that she was in, what this man would do to her!

"You wound me, my love." Tarl said before looking back down to Yui. "And doctor is it? Congratulations, Yui."

"Darling, do you and Dr. Ikari know each other?" Kyoko asked.

"Yes we are acquaintances from-" Tarl began before Yui interrupted.

"Kyoko, run, just go, you want nothing to do with this man! You do not know him, you don't know what he is capable of!"

Tarl looked at his companion, rolling his eyes.. At least let him finish for sardar's sake. Kyoko crossed her arms and looked up at him with annoyance. Get to the point her body said.

"As I was saying, I am acquainted with Yui and Gendo her…" Tarl looked to Yui again. "Boyfriend, fiance, husband?"

"Husband." Yui said dryly. "Why aren't you running, Zeppelin?"

"Her husband." Tarl said with a smile. "From my adventures. They made it here some five years ago."

"Oh." Kyoko said then turned to Yui. "You are from Gor then?"


	6. Chapter 6

Tal Everyone!

I really did not mean to make you all wait so long again for an update. I hope you enjoy it!

And if you don't enjoy it, all the more reason to leave a review! No flashbacks this time, just straight to the action.

* * *

Rebuild: A Warrior From A (Counter) Earth: Chapter 6

They were three in the elevator: Shinji of Ko-Ro-Ba, Captain Misato Katsuragi and Rei of Tokyo-3. Rei Ayanami had begun to think of herself in such a way.

Though none of them spoke there was not a bit of silence in the elevator. As before, Shinji had begun to pace the barely three meter span of the elevator car and stretch as he walked, his issued boots banging against the floor. He was a finely honed weapon, sharp and eager. Misato tapped her foot and took deep breaths just to sigh with her eyes shut and her head inclined towards the ceiling. She was an old soldier at the age of thirty-one, patient for the war to come to her. Rei herself stood against the wall opposite the door, her skin squeaking against metal as she wringed the handrail in both hands.

Along with lust and passion more new feelings had come to her. Rei considered that this one she was experiencing now must be what is called anxiety: eager and impatient for a thing to come, and halfway between anticipation and fear. No, not fear. That was neither precise nor grand enough. Terror. Yes, that was more correct. Rei was terrified. Of the angel or of what she was becoming, she did not know.

And so her terror deepened.

"What is he?" Shinji asked. 'he' did not need further explanation. Shinji's gaze was always forward, towards the walls and sweeping his companions with each circuit.

"I told you everything they told me before we started down." Misato said, eyes still closed and face still upwards. "And it is not male or female."

"I do not understand it. I beg your favor to humor the alien." Shinji said, with none of the tone to accompany his polite words. "And it is certainly male, it charges towards battle."

"Visually, the angel appears to be crystalline in structure. Its shape is an octahedron. It-"

"What is that?"

Misato's shoulders rose as she inhaled and fell when she let out a sigh. "I told you, an eight sided shape. And it is blue."

"How does he approach?"

"Flying at low altitude. _It_ follows the terrain."

"From where does he approach?"

"The East."

"From the sea. Always from the sea. What is his weapon?"

"Best we can tell, a charged particle beam. Anything that gets within a certain radius gets blasted."

"I do not understand this, what is a charged particle beam?"

"It's like a laser."

"What is a la-zar?"

Misato groaned. As though pried open by frustration, her eyes opened and she cast her gaze at Shinji. The gorean did not return it, still pacing as he was.

"Its like light going really hard and focused."

"That makes no sense."

"Okay imagine you are outside and it is really really hot and there is no shade. And you are out there for hours. Now imagine all that at once focused in one spot. That is a laser."

"You are speaking nonsense."

"Look just because you don't understand…"

Rei's hands stopped. They were bickering again. This conversation was cyclical. There would be no progress until that cycle was broken. He did not understand and the captain did not seek to make something so foreign to him understood.

Rei spoke. "It is the blue flame death." She said. Shinji met her gaze for a moment then simply nodded and continued his meager patrol.

"I see, thank you Lady Rei."

Misato looked between the pilots. "The blue what?"

"It is like a charged particle beam." Rei replied.

Misato twitched. "When did you start getting sassy?"

Rei shrugged.

"Okay fine, what is the blue flame death?"

"An execution technique employed by the Priest-Kings of Gor. A person or object is subjected to directed energy until the target combusts. The resulting flames burn blue, thus the name." Rei explained.

"Quite right, Lady Rei." Shinji said. "Has his maximum range been observed?"

This had not yet been discussed. The conversation moved forward.

"That is tentative. It seems to differentiate between threatening and nonthreatening targets. The farthest target destroyed may just have been the furthest one considered a threat."

"So then captain, what is to be our strategy?" Shinji asked.

"Deploy quickly at close range, ideally ending up closer than minimum range and strike before it can reorient and attack."

"There is great risk, but this one does not show the vulnerability that the previous have."

* * *

"Once more please." Shinji said, softly. He was now sitting in the cockpit of Unit One, ready and waiting to be launched skyward to battle.

"Um right" Lt. Hyuga's voice entered the cockpit, accompanied by a small picture of him at his console. Shinji actually quite liked that feature, it emphasized the human element in this otherwise cold setting.

"When you reach the surface, you will immediately deploy your AT field. Once the target's own field is neutralized we will begin bombardment and you will attack."

Shinji crossed his arms over his chest and let out a slow breath, making bubbles in the LCL. "No matter how many times it is repeated I feel no more at ease with it."

Misato's portrait now joined Hyuga's.

"Alright, the angel has stopped."

"My hopes that it might continue on its journey and pass our city by all for ruin." Shinji said flatly.

Misato prepared to answer and order him to drop the attitude, but it was then that the walls began to shake.

"The hell was that?" Shinji heard Misato yelling. "It what?! Oh fuck."

Shinji watched the portrait of Misato look back at him. "Alright, we are deploying right away. The angel just grew a drill and started tunneling straight down."

"Acknowledged." Shinji said, unfolding his arms and gripping the control yokes. An aphorism from school back home on Gor crossed his mind.

Poor intelligence leads to terrible plans.

* * *

 **Twenty Minutes Later**

"That…" Shinji wheezed, one arm holding himself sitting upright and the other was wrapped around his bare chest. His legs were hanging off the side of the gurney. The remnants of the top half of his plugsuit hung about his waist. Rei was still on standby in unit zero, and vocally frustrated to not be by his side while he was hurt.

"...Was a terrible plan." Misato finished his sentence. The kid was still having trouble breathing. These sympathetic reactions really were a bitch it seemed.

"And now what?" Shinji asked.

"At the current rate of progress, the angel will breach the final layer of armor in ten hours."

"And then?"

"And then we all die."

"I thought as much, but could not be sure."

"I've got to come up with something better."

"You will captain."

"You think so?"

"I am a warrior who fights battles, I've not the wisdom to command yet. Despite our disagreements, I trust in you."

"Even though I'm a woman?"

"Captain, if you are any example, Earth may have the right of this warrior women idea." Shinji smiled a little. "And if this all goes wrong, it is not as though anybody will be left to know in any case."

* * *

Toji shuffled into the steel walled shelter behind his father and grandfather, his left hand around Sakura's wrist pulling the half-asleep girl along. The alarm had come after Sakura had gone to bed and he had been getting ready to himself.

"Toji!"

Toji Suzuhara smiled. Every part about this sucked. Except Hikari Horaki lived just a few blocks down the street, so their families were assigned to the same shelter.

"Hey Bae." Toji said, catching Hikari and hugging her to his chest with one arm. It was nice.

"Hikari, get back here!"

The thing about it though, with Hikari living nearby, was that the other Horakis did to. More exactly at this time, Toji was additionally frustrated that it seemed her elder sister, Kodoma, was home.

"Oh my god, you are still dating this asshole?"

Toji didn't really hate anybody. He was not the hateful type. But oh did he surely dislike Kodama Horaki. Hikari was out of his arms now, between himself and Kodoma.

"... He's nothing but a blue-collar loser…"

"Don't call him that!"

"... Get away from him..."

"Dad, come tell this sleaze to get his hands off Hikari…"

Joy, now her wimpy father had stepped up and was wagging his finger inches from Toji's nose.

"N-now see here, young man. You had better just stay away from my daughter. I don't want you talking to her anymore."

"Uh, yeah, she's the class rep. I kinda have to talk to her." Toji replied.

"Now y-you see here young man..." Mr. Horaki repeated, as though it was giving him strength. "You had better just remember to respect your elders!"

It was at this point that Toji got the first help from his own family, his father having not intervened after plucking Sakura out of the line of fire. It was Toji's grandfather, Sanjuro, who spoke in his defense.

"Or what?"

All assembled, including the small crowd that had formed to watch the spectacle, looked to the elder Suzuhara.

"E-excuse me?"

"I said, or what? What are you going to do if he does not show you the deference you believe you are due, you small, stuttering man? He's younger than you, he's faster than you, he's stronger than you, and your daughter is fond of him. Exactly what outcome are you looking for that results in your benefit? These are questions a man ought to answer before he shakes his finger in another man's face and demands his respect. So, _young man_ , what are your answers?"

"Well, I, uh…"

As her father floundered, Kodoma chose this moment to speak again...

"Hey why don't you mind your own business, old geezer."

… and in the process shove her own proverbial foot down her own proverbial throat in a way that only an undergrad who has become absolutely assured of their knowledge of the bias of the world but who has not yet come to the realization of their own bias can.

"Oh shit, did that bitch just pop off to grandpa?" Sakura, now fully awake, said in a way her father could only describe as giddy.

"Sakura, language… and yes." Sora half heartedly tapped his daughter on the back of the head.

Sakura disliked all the Horakis not named Hikari a bit, just on principal for not liking her elder brother, but Nozomi was in her class. Nozomi was not her rival. Nozomi was not her enemy. Nozomi was an immature, idiotic, pest that made every day at school that she chose to open her stupid mouth that much less unbearably boring because then the teacher had to slow down and explain it all again like the girl was a goldfish. That was why Sakura REALLY disliked the Horakis.

And what did the empty headed brat just love to say?

 _"_ _But my big sister Kodama said…"_

"Oh this is gonna be great!"

Sora just sighed as Sakura practically jumped up and down, still holding onto his arm in her cherry blossom pajamas. At times like these when Sakura had this all together too happy bloodlust and he could see Toji starting to brood like a bomb about to go off, Sora wondered if he had done something wrong. Or perhaps his efforts to raise nice, well adjusted Earthlings had been futile.

As the Horaki's walked away, the eldest sister dragging Hikari by the wrist, Sora watched his father pull his son aside.

"Toji, you're a warrior. I know what my son has to say about that, but it is getting to be one of those times for warriors. So straighten this out."

"I could get in serious trouble."

"You gonna let that little peckerhead talk to you that way? You gonna let him take away what's yours?"

Toji's composure cracked, his lip snarling back as the vision that kept asserting itself in his mind made itself known once again. Hikari, in chains, at his feet.

 _Mine. She is MINE._

Toji's fingers curled into fists.

"Well, are you?"

"No, Sir."

"Then what are you going to do, kid?"

Toji turned.

"Mr. Horaki, I have something to ask you."

"What do you want now?"

No sooner had Horaki turned than he was lifted from the ground by his shirt.

"Hikari and I are engaged. Thought you should know. You got anything to say about it?"

"W-what?!"

"I said, I am engaged to your daughter, now do you have anything to say about that, Mizuho Horaki?"

Toji jerked the salaryman towards his own chest, hard. Toji's jaw clenched and their foreheads clapped together with a hollow knock.

"Cause if you didn't like it, I'd be upset." Toji said, his voice rising in tempo and volume like a preacher testifying. "Now I'm not the kind of man to hurt another man when I'm upset, but if Hikari was upset, oooh now that would be something I just _need_ to hurt someone over. So, Mr. Horaki, do we have your blessing?"

"B-bu-w-w-wa-wa…"

"Cause I just could not bear it if we did not have your blessing. So, do we have it? Speak louder Mizuho, I want the world to know! Shout it for all to hear. Do. We. Have. Your. Blessing?!"

"Yes!"

"Yes?!"

"Yes! Please put me dooow-"

The rest was something of a blur for Mizuho Horaki. His feet were back on solid ground, then his ass because his legs just were not ready for this yet. Then the brute who had demanded his blessing to marry Hikari was hauling him back up to his feet as easy as lifting a bookbag. His handshake felt like he was going to pull Mizuho's arm right off. Everyone else in the shelter was cheering.

"Glad to hear it, pops! Ya met my dad yet?"

Kodama was yelling. Nozomi was repeating after her. That was normal, but Hikari looked… happy?

Well that made it okay at least.

* * *

Deep within the Geofront, Misato sat within the a cone of light. A rather lonely place despite the room around her being occupied by a platoon of planners, analysts, comm techs and every other job that makes up a general staff. Maps and photographs were pinned up on the walls and the din flooded the space behind her eyes with so much noise even her brain was not getting a word in edgewise.

"Captain, what are we going to do?"

"Captain Katsuragi, the interior minister is on the line…"

"Captain..."

"Captain!"

"Captain Katsuragi!"

"QUIET!" Misato screamed, slamming her hands down on the table with such force it appeared to lift her from her seat. She now stood hunched over the table, keen and intense eyes scanning the room.

"I am going to ask questions. I want one answer, and only from the most senior person in this room who is informed on the matter. If you can't keep your mouth shut I will throw you out. Now I want you all together to tell me whether you understand or not."

"YES, MA'AM!" The room shouted in unison.

"Good. Now, what is the largest yield weapon we have available that is NOT, I repeat NOT, an N2 mine. No fuel air bombs or anything like that either." After seeing that monster shrug off what it had, Misato had no interest in wasting time with an uncontrolled explosive. What was needed was penetration.

"Ma'am, that would be either cruise missiles loaded with…"

"No, scratch that, no explosives. What is the biggest baddest kinetic weapon available?"

"Well, um, the Americans have railguns on a couple some of their ships."

"Are any of those ships within…" Misato checked her watch. "Nine and a half hours sailing of range?"

"Uuuum… no."

"Then they might as well not exist. What about the positron cannon project?"

"Still a couple months out on the prototype. We've had to divert resources repairing Unit One and getting Unit Zero walking."

"That's our project, what do we know about the Strategic Self Defense Force's?"

"Um, I mean we don't have a direct line but I heard they were doing full scale test firings soon."

For the first time since this business started, a smile crept across Misato's face. It was almost dawn, it was already tomorrow.

"I need to make a call."

* * *

Far away and on the highest hill to be found, Kensuke Aida was digging. Aircraft were sweeping the area and so he was laying on his belly, digging with an entrenching tool. He had purchased the useful little shovel from a surplus store. His plan was to dig a foxhole, then get some branches to build a little cover shelter, then set up the camera. If everything went wrong, he would die sure, but he would die down in one of the shelters anyway. Now if Shinji comes through and saves the day on the other hand, he will have some awesome video that may just be worth a pretty penny to someone out there.

Decent little gamble that. Kensuke had just gotten home with the alarms began to sound. So he bagged his camera and equipment, changed into his camping camos and off he went. With everyone rushing into the shelters it was easy enough to slip away.

Kensuke had been starting up the hill when he first saw the angel. The sheer size of the thing was awe inspiring and it was deafening in its silence. When they first tried to pop the evangelion up he had not even been able to get his camera out in time to catch a glimpse. That was not going to happen again. Even as he dug he had his camera ready on the ground beside him.

Several hours later and Kensuke reflected he had a respectable hole in the ground. The ground came to his shoulders and he had built a blind above with saplings and light branches. The view to the city was clear and he had set up his video camera, now running, on a tripod. Kensuke kept an eye on the clock and swapped tapes. Much longer and he'd start recording over. Not a big deal, nothing much on film yet. NERV was working on something big way outside of town, but there were hills between his spot and there.

* * *

It was mid-morning now, and a beautiful one it was. The sky was clear and the green hills all but shined in the sunlight. It would be an exceptional day to go for a walk and take in the natural beauty of city's lands, Shinji thought. If not for the great blue crystalline monstrosity of course.

Goreans have an appreciation for nature. It was something Tarl had told Shinji once. The young man had always found it an odd thing to say.

Did not all people see the beauty in the world? It was not an unusual thing where he was from to simply watch the clouds in their movements. Or to take a moment from one's labor to take in the motion of the grass as the wind swept across the landscape. Man's creations were grand but what was there not to appreciate, what is not awe inspiring, of the natural world?

Perhaps Tarl had felt the need to say it because he knew Shinji would be on this world someday. He knew, and spoke at length, about what Earthlings did to their world. A Gorean would not do such things. Shinji knew his people had the capacity for great cruelty to one another, but not for the natural world and its creatures. Nature was great and free, and so worthy of respect.

Captain Katsuragi had brought him up here by elevator, a great distance from the city. Shinji could just see the glass and steel towers of Tokyo-3 between the hills and beneath the shadow of the angel. In the valley below he could now see why she had brought him. The emerald grass was all but totally obscured such was the volume of men and materiel in constant motion below. The men wore bright colors and not a one stood still or moved slowly. To a man they moved with haste and, Shinji noticed with high regard, absolute cooperation.

"What are they doing?" He asked.

"This is Operation Yashima. The total power output of the entire nation will be carried here, to drive the weapon we'll use to kill this thing."

"But what are they doing? How will this accomplish that?"

"Shinji, the infrastructure to carry all that energy and store it, to make it useful for what we need to do, does not exist yet. They are building it all here and now. See those big machines over there?" She pointed towards many great machines, each painted in yellow and black stripes and moving quantities of soil so great that when it was dropped it looked like it could crush small buildings.

"Those teams are clearing way for where you and Rei will be. As soon as they have it dug out and flat, concrete will go down and then everything we need to install the gun. None of this was here even a couple hours ago."

With this understanding Shinji looked over the valley again. As far as he could see between the hills men and machinery moved. Thousands of voices called out. Rails were laid down for great carriages to bring more rail within minutes. Cables as thick as oxen were being laid by the pasang and made to feed into even larger ones than that. Dirt roads were being cleared even as trucks carrying more supplies arrived upon them.

Dire though their situation was, Shinji smiled. A small thing at first, before his lips drew back over his teeth and from there he threw back his head and laughed to the blue sky.

"Yes! By the Sardar and their mountains I knew it. I knew you Earthlings could not be without all reason. Your caste of builders is amazing! To make all of this in mere hours!" Shinji said, in awe of everything he could see. "I understand now how formidable your civilization truly is, Captain."

"Well, uh, glad you approve. He he." Misato said, somewhat nervously. Its okay Katsuragi, just remember his people get really… passionate about things.

"To construct engines and lay a siege in mere hours! No city could resist against such speed. I must thank you a thousand times for showing me this, Captain. I do have much to learn here after all."

"Yeah, uh, once this is done I'll uh, get you some military histories, okay?"

Shinji turned away from the works beneath and looked to her, his smile not unlike a gleeful shark to her eyes.

"Captain, my captain, you spoil me. Yes, let us vanquish this foe together. Then we will feast!" Shinji said. Turned towards the valley below again, he raised his to the sky. "All here will have contributed to the victory, it will be all's celebration! And then Captain, and then you and I will read histories!"

"Heh, yeah, woohoo…" Misato said, just watching the boy as he continued to awe at the workers.

What have I done?

* * *

 **Hours Later...**

"Alright kids, here's the plan!" Misato said. Watching her image in window from within the entry plug, Shinji saw the 'look' her face bore, an expression he had learned here on Earth. Her expression was gleeful, yet aggressive. Confident with a touch of mania. From the way she turned her head to look him then away, he assumed there was another image beside his own on the bridge showing Rei.

"We have prepared a position outside the city. From there we will fire upon the angel with the positron cannon. Unit Zero will handle the gun while Unit One will manage the shield we have procured."

There was that word again. Shinji was beginning to think that 'procured' in its earthly usage meant to steal or extort for military purposes.

"Shinji, Unit One would usually be the more suitable for manning the rifle however between the damage from the previous angel and that hit you took earlier it was faster to rig Unit Zero. You'll be responsible for deflecting incoming fire so Rei can focus on shooting."

"Bearing a shield, now that is something I am comfortable with."

"We can't predict what will happen once we hit the angel. This may be over in a single blow or it may need to be finished off. With Unit Zero prone that may fall to you in Unit One, Shinji. What do you want ready if you have to move in for the kill?"

"Spears, swords, something familiar. With all of the weapons yet brought to bear on him, I doubt the monster will succumb to rifle fire."

"We have glaives."

"That will do."

Misato nodded and the window closed. Shinji heard Lady Maya's voice next.

"Deploying both evangelions. Good hunting." She said and there was a shudder before Shinji's view began to rise into the railway tunnels.

* * *

"Alright everyone, this is it!" Misato yelled out over the bridge, white knuckle fingers wrapped around the steel rail. Coffee and adrenaline had her psyched up as she presided over what was to be the climax of the longest of longshot plans or the end of the world.

"Gunner Unit Zero, are you ready?"

Rei leaned forward in her seat and pulled down the bulky sighting module to her eye. Rei settled the busy reticle upon the blue diamond in the distance.

"Ready, Captain."

"Shield bearer Unit One, are you ready?"

Shinji shifted his shoulders as Unit One set the tip of the titanic SSTO shield into the Earth and braced. From this position, Shinji could just see over the lip of the slit cut in the shield as a viewing port. Shinji ducked his head and the eva followed. No need to look at the thing, he would feel the hit. Just hold the shield wall, let Rei do her duty, and all will be well.

"Aye, Captain."

"Aright, ready as we'll ever be. Charge the rifle! Rei, as soon as maximum charge is reached, you are free to fire!"

* * *

Shinji, in the moments leading up to the exchange which pitted the power of a nation of many cities against a thousand suns, had rejected the feeling clawing at the back of his skull as mere nerves before the battle. The nerves every warrior had. The nerves that anyone who denied was a liar.

As the force hit the shield and the evangelion's knees buckled beneath the blow, Shinji realized what it had been. Someone had called out a hit from over the radio just before the force struck. This was to be the angel's retort.

Misato had asked if Shinji was ready. Shinji had said yes.

That had been a lie borne of ignorance.

The evangelion's head ducked low as it was, Shinji saw clearly the beam of light pass Unit One's legs and hit the rifle. The explosion that followed was blinding.

* * *

 _Sister..._

Soft hands upon her cheeks pulled Rei away from reality. In an instant the battle was frozen in time and far away. Rei was aware of it, but as an audience, not a participant.

Instead of seated within the cockpit of Unit Zero, Rei now stood about a grassy hill bearing a single tree and looking out into an emerald valley.

"It is well that we now meet, dear sister." A voice behind Rei spoke, and she turned to meet it. There was a woman there, pale but not so pale as herself, with dark hair. She wore only a steel band about her neck and a length of rough red fiber tied about her hips. Her otherwise nakedness did not bother Rei, but the way she moved and held herself aroused something within the girl. She was so fluid, so… sensual, Rei supposed that word was appropriate. Rei realized what she felt now was jealousy that this woman was able to move with such confidence and grace.

"Oh but please forgive my candor. This girl should not have spoken to you with such familiarity, _mistress_." The slave said, the final word full of cruelty. Rei knew what derision sounded like, what it was to be mocked.

"Who are you?" Rei asked.

"A slave who belongs to the master to whom you desire to belong. I see the path you look down, I know the fire in your belly."

The slave stepped forward, rocking her hips like the shoulders of the panther as he stalks his quarry. Rei stepped back.

"Do you wish to know how to please him? This girl may teach you. She may also teach you the ways and words to give yourself to him so he could not say no."

What Rei wished to say then was that she would give all she owned for that knowledge. But there was duty. Duty was why he had rejected her offer and duty was why Rei could not dally here. Her duty awaited.

"I must go."

"Master is strong, but for him to triumph you must take action."

"My weapon is destroyed. Unit Zero is disabled."

"Ah ah ah." The slave held up a wagging finger. "Just because it will not shoot does not make this weapon useless. This evangelion can move, with great strain upon it. With great strain upon you but your will can make it move."

"I can feel its weakness. Further activity will result in-"

"Death for the evangelion. You will survive, even as your mind will live the journey into the void with it. The result will be victory, and this victory demands any cost. And…"

The slave smiled and stepped closer. Rei did not retreat as she took Rei's own hands in hers and pulled, the slave girl craning her neck and putting them cheek to cheek.

"With your duty done, there will be nothing between you and master. Nothing will remain to curb your slave fire, sister." The slave said and suddenly pulled quite sharply, pressing her body against Rei's own. Her voice was as suddenly husky and pushing hot breath across Rei's neck. Every word, every syllable, was pronounced so exactly and so passionately the very sound and feel of her lips brushing against Rei's skin set Rei's body a tingle and filled her mind with what her own lips might do upon Shinji's flesh.

"You are his love slave and he your ideal master. He will take you and bring forth your true nature, your most base and salacious being. You will be as the female is meant to be before the male, totally and utterly submissive and feminine. This I know and feel within you. You need but say so and I will give you what you desire most, I will give you Him."

Tremors ran through Rei's body. The images, the smells, the sounds, the pure sensations that filled her mind denied her her words. Instead, looking up into the blue sky over the valley, she could only moan as her legs failed her and she fell. This woman who called herself her sister guided her down to her knees in the soft grass. The ground was cool and Rei realized that her plug suit was gone and she was now naked to the sky. Her body still shook and her breath was too short to summon speech, weak mewling bubbling forth from her lips.

"I will give this to you, only ask." The slave, her sister somehow, now cradled Rei against her body. Her support was the only thing keeping the quivering girl upright.

"P-p-pleeeease…" Rei's lips gasped out, the concentration enormous just to form the thought so overwhelmed her mind was.

"Yes. Of course my sister. I care for you. I am your dearest friend. I could not bear to ask much of you for this. You need only do a single thing for me…"

On the command bridge, things were slipping further out of control.

"First child's synchro graph just spiked! Neural activity within Unit Zero has been restored but all limiters are reading null. All safeguards have been deactivated."

As the angel's attack proceeded relentless, as the light from the beam darkened the day by comparison, as resisting but ultimately sinking legs dropped Unit One closer to the ground and so defeat, Unit Zero moved.

Steel wailed and concrete groaned as the burned evangelion tore what remained of the positron rifle from its mount. The giant shrieked in agony, its muscles disintegrating as the blistered flesh, so deeply burned that ash touched bone, fell apart in cinders. The barrel was gone, every mechanism to concentrate and make use of the massive supply of energy was slagged or had been erased from existence.

These things were not needful.

With both arms, Unit Zero bashed the broken weapon against the ground, shearing off what remained the positron rifle's barrel components. Only the receivers and conduits to feed the power were left, with one building sized fuse loaded into the breach.

The strain was too much for Unit Zero's left arm. It hung maimed and limp now, but the right arm lifted. As Unit One came closer, Unit Zero forced a leg beneath its body and rose. Shaking, convulsing as failures cascaded through its systems, Evangelion Unit Zero braced itself against Unit One, and thrust the muzzle of the remainder of the disabled rifle into the other eva's back.

This should not work. The chance of failure was too high. But Rei could feel gentle hands guiding her own. There would be waste, the connection would not be perfect, but by the sheer volume of energy it would be enough for what must be done.

Within the entry plug, Rei could barely move. She could feel Zero dying around her. There was no more external view, the entire plug filled with darkness and white noise and a thousand flashing warnings. Rei felt every single pain of death by total body failure. There would be no recovery, no repair. What was not crumbling to ash was being boiled alive.

Rei concentrated now. She had to do this. It was her duty but it was more than that could be, than it ever was. Earth would live, humanity would live, she would live but more than all of that HE would be victorious. And in his victory he would take her, stripped of everything and her duty finished. He would be her love master and she his ideal slave.

Rei lost her breath, choking for a moment. A cough cleared her throat and as it bubbled forth she realized it had been her own blood that had taken her breath away. She could feel the weight of Unit One, driven down by the angel. It was time.

Rei pulled the trigger. The nation went dark, cables surged with energy, capacitors filled and discharged in an instant, all of it gathered to this place and this moment into the mechanism. Lightning struck and thunder roared as shocking arcs lashed into the countryside. Cables and equipment failed explosively. Fire creeped through the emerald hills.

* * *

 _Yes… YES!... I AM EVERYTHING! I KNOW EVERYTHING!_

That voice, a banshee's wail, filled the cockpit as Shinji frantically tried to move the legion of warning icons aside so he could actually see. The myriad readouts and blaring alerts were not yet his field of expertise, but he was learning and knew some things for sure.

The battery level should not go from nearing empty to to full capacity and back several times in a second. The words "Power Level Dangerously High" and "Capacitors Failing" and worst of all "Apotheosis Event Imminent" did not bode well either. That word 'apotheosis' was unfamiliar but Shinji had learned that if you did not know the meaning of a warning it was likely the one to be most concerned out.

Shinji felt the hands on his shoulders and the jolt as he was pulled from the here and now. He was now in a void, looking upon a towering giant of light. At first blinding, he slowly saw it was female in shape. Detail was obscured but for two black pits where eyes would be.

 _I am complete! I am the beginning, I am the end! I am the totality of humanity!_

"You are nought but a slave."

 _What right have you to even dare, you who are but an insect beneath my gaze._

"Your master, girl. To whom you submitted yourself and so bound by my will, by the law of man and the priest-kings, and by rules of nature, you will serve."

The giant looked down upon Shinji for a silent moment, her cold black eyes boring through him. Shinji did not flinch.

Many are the women who will look into you with vision beyond reckoning, Tarl Cabot had told him once. Through some sense we as men do not generally possesses they will find the smallest emotion, the slightest crack at which they might pry to rule you.

And in that moment I must show no weakness, Shinji had responded.

Such women will look to you always in that way, Tarl had told him then. So you must have no weakness for them to attack. This I know better than the common man, my son.

Shinji stared down the god of light, of power. Then a feeling, like a warm embrace, enveloped his body. An emotion radiating from the giant and into his flesh and down to his very bones.

Pride.

 _Always. Go upon the enemy now…_

Reality resolved back into focus. Once again Shinji felt the synchronicity there had been between himself and the machine during his first battle upon Earth. There was no cockpit, no screen, no controls. Shinji simply was the giant. His fingers tightened around the holds of his shield.

 _With bloody constraint, in earthquake and in thunder, in fierce tempest fall upon the angel. Like a new Mars, filled with with malicious and merciless intent, rise up my master!_

Outside Tokyo-3, the power surge stopped. The trembling Earth beneath the mighty evangelions stopped. Everything froze in that moment as if time itself had stopped. Ramiel's light flickered.

Then in majesty and terrible violence, Evangelion Unit One moved. The great shield thrust forward and the shock wave of it passing the sound barrier flattened trees, threw men from their feet, and extinguished fires along the hills. An explosion of rainbow light made even the angel's attack seem dimmed.

Ramiel's charged particle beam split and broke. The keening wail now a more organic and pained noise than before it had been wounded.

The angel began to shift once more. A second, than a third, than more ruby cores emerged from within the twisting blue crystal until there was a ring of crimson within a web of blue. Light began at the top of the ring and slowly filled each core in turn as it journeyed down one side to the lowest point and rose back up, like a needle circumnavigating a dial.

Unit One's jaw broke free of its restraints. The evangelion thrust the tip of the SSTO shield into the earth and braced.

"NO!"

Ramiel's attack stopped. It did not cease, it was merely stopped all forward motion when it met Unit One's defense. The landscape was obliterated in every direction, hills and mountains were flattened. The Angel's full force still came, but it did not move forward. Seized by iridescent light, for a moment there was nothing. Then Unit One's AT field began to bend. Like the closing fist of a god the shimmering light sealed shut around the particle beam. The spear of light splashed against the force of one mastering will but as it was enveloped, it was now turned back.

The Angel shifted again. Ramiel raised its own AT field. It stopped boring down in order to put every quantum of energy into its own defense.

Shinji found it lacking.

An angel's cry fit to drive men mad rang out. Blood flooded the city as pieces of Ramiel were torn off by its own power turned back against it threefold.

And in a plane that was once a valley stood Unit One. Its armor twisted and blackened by the ordeal, but standing braced beneath the shield.

Shinji Ikari sat upon the throne of souls within the titan. His plugsuit had split across his upper body, leaving his chest and arms, muscles flush and tight, exposed. Shinji breathed deep of the bubbling LCL, his hands white knuckled fists around the control yokes.

The evangelion rose to its full height, and in doing so picked up the sonic glaive that had been left at its feet. Defiant before the angel, the battered and diminished but still massive shield held only by the left hand, evangelion Unit One raised the glaive extended forward, the shaft along its arm, to the angel.

"Hyuga." Shinji's voice rang over the bridge.

"Y-yeah?"

"I will need more Glaives."

"Um, well, you need to get closer to the city. All the elevators in your vicinity are toast."

"Where?" Shinji asked. As though in response a marker appeared in his field of view.

"There. It is uh… fourteen hundred meters ahead. Once you are there it will take another five seconds to reach you. If we launch too early-"

"The angel may target it. Begin sending every weapon you can into the city. Guns, knives, anything but most especially the glaives."

"What?"

"Now!" Shinji said, pushing both yokes hard forward. Ash and black earth rose up as a shockwave of air and a great BOOM emanated from where Unit One had stood. The evangelion was within the city now, sprinting strides tearing up the roadway beneath and heading straight for Ramiel as the angel reformed itself again, spreading itself out into five segments with its ruby core at the center.

"Shinji, get to cover!" Misato all but screamed over the comm. "It's about to fire."

Ramiel's beam of destruction carved through the entire avenue, boiling concrete, steel, and glass, the components of modern artifice, into magma-like slag. What it did not so much as touch was Evangelion Unit One.

In a moment of that felt more real than any moment before, Shinji had seen… no, he had _felt_ the attack coming. Well trained instincts wielding new power had used the AT field to throw the Evangelion laterally down another boulevard.

While the gorean warrior carried a strong shield and wore a trustworthy helmet, it is wrong to characterize them as relying on these objects. The Priest-Kings proscribe a limitation on body armor, however again this is not to say the allowed items are the basis of the defense in Gorean martial arts. In single combat, both the helmet and the shield serve only as final options when one has failed to accomplish the true basis of defense.

Do not allow yourself to be struck

The spirit within the evangelion cheered him on as Shinji launched the glaive like a javelin at the sanguine center of the angel. Before the anguished cry of pain had ended, Shinji had a rifle in hand and had already begun emptying the magazine to pepper the angel with fire.

 _Your will, the spiteful wrath of a war god, will soon soar from the window of your destiny. White-hot pathos, a new and final philosophy for this desecrated world; Stay true to this and never betray yourself, Shinji of Ko-Ro-Ba!_

Shinji sighted in on the next glaive, now presenting itself from an armory tower. Closer than he would have imagined mere moments ago, Shinji danced in the body of a giant among the angel's spears of light. The beast's aim was slow, not desperate, and Shinji thought in the spare milliseconds between thought and action that a being such as this does not have the capacity of desperation. Shinji found no fault in it. He could, in that way particular to warriors, respect it. To respect it in the same fashion that the spirit within the Evangelion praised the angels.

 _On this poor soul for whom this war opens its vast and mighty jaws, is not so foolish as to beg mercy nor quarter. For it and its kin are an enemy perfect, and so worthy of the greatest battle you are able to summon from within yourself._

Shinji's fingers closed around the shaft of the glaive, but the weapon would not move. Moving as though through the thickest muck, the clamps by which the tower had grasped the weapon had not yet released fully.

First there was pressure upon the AT field, then heat as the energy began to build. Shinji's awareness turned towards the angel. His momentum lost, there was to be no escape from the attack which was to come. Shinji raised his shield.

It should be noted that the gorean defense would, much like any similar art on Earth, say with great emphasis that simply stopping an attack with a shield is the 'least-good' outcome. Yes you have not been struck, but nor have you gained any advantage beyond that.

Shinji felt the impact of the charged particle beam upon his battered shield. This was the time of the feeling, the time when you most intimately know your opponent. Not through words, nor treatise, nor histories will you know your enemy more closely than in the feeling.

There were a hundred sensations speaking volumes to his instincts. The pressure of the attack, the slow warping of the shield as it bent then began to collapse, the way the beam, like a torrent of water, was to a degree uneven and despite the enormous power unfocused in a way. It was only really pointed towards where it was meant to go, not aimed with murderous intent.

Thoughts, feelings, emotions on the subject, these all happened in an instant of the feeling. Shinji turned the face of his shield oblique to the spear of light and let slack his grip. The shield had served well but it was on the verge of failure. Shinji felt the beam shove the shield against his hand, the slack turning it into a sudden and explosive push.

The angel having learned from failure, as soon as the attack was deflected the pressure was gone. It had been enough though, Shinji had stolen energy from the attack, and used it to steal time. The impulse of the push from his failing shield had turned the evangelion sharply enough to force the spear from the machine arms that had held it and set Shinji into motion once more towards the angel.

Shinji felt it in his own core muscles as Unit One turned at the hips mid stride to plant one foot perpendicular to the street, felt the ground buckling beneath that foot as the evangelion skidded to a halt. Then Shinji's own muscle memory built by years of training took over. Unit one hafted the glaive like a javelin in its right hand and stretched its left hand out to the angel.

The angel's core had begun to glow. The thunder of god was about to come down like a hammer upon this foe.

The throw started, as all such things should, in the abdomen. Shinji felt every fiber tighten in his own body as his muscles twisted his upper and lower halves against each other. His hips and calves followed, then the chest and finally the arms.

The double shock wave as the spear broke the sound barrier shattered glass down every nearby street for miles and shook the steel buildings to their foundations.

* * *

Ramiel's angelic awareness was such that it felt the hypersonic projectile incoming at a snail's pace. Resigned to the futility of any assault against its most perfect and being, Ramiel raised its AT field with a minitiua of its power. Primitive creatures throwing sticks.

The milliseconds passed like eternities. Ramiel took notice of something. The spear was sheathed in rainbow light. It was still coming. On a wave of pressure as though the sky itself was advancing upon the angel, it was coming.

It was also, despite every possible factor both natural and within the control of Ramiel's absolute territory acting to the contrary, _accelerating_.

To the personnel on the bridge, it had been just moments since Unit Zero had stabbed Unit One with the remains of the positron rifle, before the evangelion with the demonic visage had sprinted at supersonic speeds towards the with the apparent intent of stabbing it in the face. With anxious horror they watched the angel fire again, point blank down at Unit One. When the angel's core burst into crystal ash and flooded the city with its blood.

And when Unit One rose from the crimson deluge. Its armor was peeled back and as the blood fell from its frame it revealed charred black armor and flesh. The main screen switched to a camera looking directly at the evangelion. The bridge was silent beneath the rictus smile and uncanny eyes. They could hear the sound of the blood lapping against buildings like waves against the beach.

Then there was creaking and moaning as rainbow light danced across Unit One, knitting flesh and bending armor. Not back into place though. There were changes. That horrible smile and off putting gaze were covered, but not by the beastial visage of the helmet NERV had built. There was no frill, no horn, no jutting jawline. This was, somehow, worse. Perhaps not in its form but what it represented.

It was a corinthian helmet as it was known on Earth. Where there had been a thin horn now there was a crest, tall in the front and descending back into the curve of the back of the head. Sweeping cheekpieces covered the face and, with a sharp nose guard between the eyes, formed a Y-shaped opening beyond which the only light was the evangelion's glowing eyes.

"Ma'am…"

"What is it Hyuga?" Misato responded, struck dumb and staring at the monitors.

"It's the evangelion."

"I can see that, Lieutenant."

"No ma'am, I mean it… its power."

"I saw that too lieutenant, thank you."

"No, Ma'am. I mean it has been disconnected from the umbilical since the hit that took out the positron cannon. The batteries aren't feeding it…. But it hasn't lost power. In fact the batteries are even receiving some charge."

Silence fell, all eyes on Hyuga staring at his console.

"Wait… no…. Nevermind, the eva is shutting down. It must have been a sensor fault."

Sighs of relief were followed by orders dispatching recovery units. Normalcy in an insane world.

Within Evangelion Unit One, a spirit held the smallest of fires in her hands. Once a shining star it was now little more than an ember.

 _Shhh… not yet. The time will come, but not yet._

* * *

 ** _The next morning, on the other side of the world_**

Asuka Shikinami centered herself. Deep breaths. Not merely to fill her chest but a truly deep breath, drawn down all the way down to the cradle of her pelvis.

She pushed the outside world away. Conditioned air, the modern cacophony of electronics, the feel of the mat beneath her bare toes and friction of the chalk around her wrapped hands.

Breath out. Breath in.

Asuka savored the stillness she could force upon the world. Asuka did not need peace in her environment. Her own will was power enough. She knew she had reached true stillness as she listened to the blood flow through her veins.

This is what she had trained herself for. Complete control. As though she could take her very heart within her hands and define its beat. Her body was under her conscious authority. Her will controlled her biology, not the other way around. She was human, superhuman in her own thoughts for she had surpassed mere passion and discipline.

Breath out. Breath in. Draw the breath in, feel rich blood spread within your arteries.

Asuka knew that her resting heart rate, as it was now, hovered around forty three beats per minute. Perhaps less when she slept, she had never bothered to have it checked. That resting idle was part genetics and part training.

Asuka let the world back in. An unjust world, a cruel world. A world where mama died, mad and alone after HE left. A world within an universe where HE existed.

Rage was a primal, uncontrolled thing. Asuka had once been filled with rage, when she was very little. What she possessed now was beyond rage. It was bloodthirsty battle hungry anger distilled over and over by a disciplined mind. Rage was crude oil from the earth. In comparison, Asuka ran on nitromethane spiked with brimstone.

Asuka's feet launched her from the mat with such strength chalk was thrown up in her wake. Wrapped hands caught the lower horizontal of the uneven bars. She tucked her legs as her body arched over the bar once then swung them down, arresting her spin at the apex of the second time around the bar. Hand over hand she whipped her body one hundred and eighty degrees to face the taller horizontal. As gravity took hold and her body began to fall once again, Asuka accelerated forward with all the might of her core, legs, and arms. She launched herself through the air. When she caught the high bar it was beneath her and her own momentum sent her sailing downward over it. Another two spins and she stopped herself at the apex again, toes pointing dagger straight at the ceiling.

Momentum was not holding her up. Muscles like steel cable and her own will held her aloft. But then she let it all relax. Her body was liquid as it dropped until the last moment as her fingers tightened on the bar, her legs kicked out and flew forward and upwards so hard her face stung as the blood was pushed from her skin.

Finally, her fingers let the apparatus go. She tucked in on herself and spun once, twice, three times until like a steel blade her body stuck upright to the mat, arms raised.

Good. Now that her blood was up it was time for the workout.

Asuka ran forward, tumbled and took the recurve bow from it's stand and four arrows from the upright quiver. On one knee she drew back and let fly all four missiles so quickly the bow string sounded like a guitar beneath the the fingers of flamenco master. Four foam targets were struck down from the posts of varying heights they had been mounted upon. Kaji set them up for her, different each morning, and she made a point to not look at the targets before she began.

She left the bow on the mat as she sprang to her feet again. Feet pounded the floor so loud a horse might be running the room. Time for the final exercise. She pulled a sharp sword from its scabbard, hung alongside the hip of a mannequin. It was a spin and the follow through brought her foot up to snap the dummy's wooden head from it's shoulders.

More randomized targets, cuts to be completed indicated not by markings but by mounted round wooden shields and broom handles in the place of spears and swords. Four wooden enemies, their cores made of wrapped tatami mats soaked in water overnight, fell dismembered to the floor. Asuka finished with her sword high in the posture called the unicorn, her sword raised like the mythical beast's horn to the sky at the finish of a cut from below.

Asuka had only let a little bit of the world in, just for her morning exercise. Now she let the rest in and there was clapping.

"Very very good Asuka." Ryoji Kaji said, taking the sharp sword scabbard from where it had fallen and bringing it to her. Asuka took it from him and returned the sword to its sheath.

"Those cuts, that was the nine through twelve of Meyer's square."

"That's right, you do it perfectly."

"Bah, as if something so unoriginal would challenge me! My enemies won't come in a series of perfect practice cuts, Kaji." Asuka said, handing the sword over to Kaji before allowing herself a deep breath and to rest her hands on front of her thighs. Kaji gave her a water bottle and the straw was swiftly in her mouth.

"That's true, but they won't be made of straw mats either." Kaji said, inspecting the tatami halfs still stuck upon their stands. "Great cuts though."

"Of course!"

"Well… Except for that third one." Kaji said. Asuka nearly spat.

"It was perfect!"

"It was good, it just looked slow." He said. Kaji pushed his thumb against the edge of the mat to separate the layers. The straw was frayed where the sword had entered, not cleanly cut. "If that had been flesh the blade would of gotten bound up in something. Too slow, he might not have gotten you'd been delayed long enough for his buddy to finish it."

"Well, had it been your ahem, real sword, it could have been steel and you would have gone right through." Kaji reminded her. The sword he held was only steel, better than any knight ever could have wanted. But again, that was not good enough for Asuka.

"Naw, I can't rely on mama's sword. Come on Kaji! First you become superior, then you use superior equipment." Asuka said, recovered and standing tall again, dropping the empty water bottle on the gym floor.

"You up for some dagger plays?" She asked. Kaji had never really taken to her beloved longswords, but he was the best around when it came to partners for knife fighting. Well besides herself of course, but its not like she had anyone else to practice with.

"Maybe later. First I thought you might want to watch a little something something I just got this morning."

"Oh?" Asuka said, head cocked to the side and hands on her hips. "Better not be another stupid pre-impact show."

"You wound me. No, this little something something is classified ultraviolet."

"Oooooh my god you got the footage of the fight with the fifth?!"

"After action briefing goes live in twenty."

"Ryoji Kaji you are an amazing human being and currently my very very favorite. Can we watch it here?"

"Only rule is we have to be in a SCIF."

"Great!" Asuka replied, bounding over to her bag.

"Just enough time to-"

"Get in some dagger plays!" Asuka said and Kaji caught the wooden knife out of the air with a sigh. He had been up late last night, he'd only had one cup of coffee and Asuka was a handful when he was at his best.

"I was going to say for you to get cleaned up."

"Bah, nobody is stupid enough to say I stink. Now lay on!"

* * *

"Once the positron cannon was hit, things began to deviate from expectations…" Dr. Ritsuko Akagi continued, having already explained the battle plan and Operation Yashima.

"Well that's a bit of understatement." Kaji murmured.

"At the risk of getting too technical…"

"Too late." Asuka chuckled, leaning back further in her seat.

"...Usually at this point what we would see is the evangelion's AT field neutralizing the angel's own field. The fields meet and harmonize thus canceling each other out and leaving the angel vulnerable."

Dr. Akagi pointed towards a new slide, showing two overlapping waveforms meet then flatten out.

"This data is from the fourth angel's attempt on Tokyo-3. Now here…" Ritsuko pushed a button and the image did not seem to change. The same two wave lines were shown on a graph. Then one line shifted, growing in wavelength and amplitude.

"...Is the most recent event. When Unit One deployed its AT field there was no harmonization."

The graph shifted again, the growing waveform eventually rendering the smaller invisible by the scale needed to show its size.

"The angel's AT field was instead completely suppressed. Now this did not kill the angel, though it did neutralize the AT field as a defense. Additionally, analysis shows that the angel was making use of its AT field to focus and control the charged particle beam. Our theory at this point is that it was this splitting the use and so effectiveness of the AT field. This in turn allowed Unit One to overpower it and deliver the final blow."

Ritsuko advanced the presentation again. The next image showed Unit One having thrown, the angel still alive, and a white blur in the middle of the somewhat grainy image.

"That blow was delivered by one of our sonic glaives repurposed as a javelin. Unit One, unhindered by having to use its AT field to mount a defense or neutralize the enemy, instead continued to accelerate the weapon to mach five-point-four-five. As the glaive was never built to withstand anything like that energy it was obliterated on impact, however the energy transfer was more than sufficient disrupt the core."

Once more the image changed, this time to a nighttime scene with cranes set up over the angel's remains. There was only a rounded hollow where the core had been.

"Unit One required replacement of most of the ventral facing armor. The damaged cranial armor was only bent back into a recognizable shape and was not structurally sound so that has been replaced as well. With Unit Zero the damage analysis is still ongoing but recovery is unlikely due to large scale tissue damage, almost total destruction of the cranium caused by unchecked energy release when the positron cannon was damaged. Speaking of which, while the cannon itself was a loss significant research data was gathered which should advance our own project substantially. We have also gleaned valuable insight from Operation Yashima, the power grid expansion project undertaken to provide the necessary energy to the weapon."

"As to the pilot, the third child has been unresponsive to questions on the matter of how these feats were accomplished. He is apparently distraught over the condition of the first child, who has yet to regain consciousness."

* * *

Shinji held Rei's limp hand between his own, her fingers on his lips. She had been unconscious when she was removed from the evangelion and in poor condition. That had been yesterday. Shinji had chosen to stay until she woke, even taking meals at her side. The leavings of dinner were by the door.

"Please wake up."

Laid out as she was, she did not look so different from when he had first beheld her. No broken bones, so the physicians had told him. Several hard bumps, among them a respectable strike to the head. Not unlike a man whose helmet had withstood the blow but the sheer force had struck him through it.

"Wake up. Wake up girl. We have things to be about."

Girl. Not lady. Slave, not free woman.

Shinji had seen it in her of course. It was in all women, but particularly strong in her. She was well suited to the collar. There had been a moment during the battle though. A single electric moment where there had been total connection. It had been like and unlike the experience with Toji and Kensuke. There was that same mindfulness, but instead of a full sharing of thought and memory this had been a flash as quick as lightning. And as powerful as thunder.

Shinji bowed his head and held her fingers against his forehead. He had cried more than once this day. Crying was not unseemly for a man, warriors were men of powerful emotions after all, but to do so for a slave… Despite himself, an idea had formed in Shinji's mind.

One does not cry beside the sickbed of a mere slave. A slave does not put herself in such condition for any master.

This girl was his love slave. His opposite and complement. That which would complete him as he completed her.

And there was no guarantee she would ever wake. So cruel fate could be, to give such a boon with one hand only to take it with the other.

"I beg your favor Rei, wake."

It was not the first time he had said it. He had begged, ordered, cajoled, threatened, screamed at her and it had all been for nothing. She had not moved but to breath, she had not made a single sound.

Shinji raised his head and looked upon her again. He held the palm of her petite and pale hand to his lips. Perhaps if she did not hear she would at least feel his words. Perhaps she could hear everything and could not react. What a hell that would be to suffer. But even so, perhaps his breath and his words would be a comfort. So he spoke to her in Gorean. Even if the words were not familiar to her, in his language at least he could express himself fully.

"Rei, I know your desire. I have felt it because it calls the desires of a man in me. War and battles are my profession but my dearest wish is that you will wake so I may complete us both by taking you for mine own. You will be as you wish to be Rei, as I am convinced you are meant to be. I will take from and give to you pleasure of the flesh but too I wish to listen to you, to converse with you, to know every part of your mind and your thoughts. To know you in totality is what I desire, that is how needful you are to me. So please, Lady Rei Ayanami of Tokyo-3, wake up."

Shinji closed his eyes once more, ready at this point to start offering sacrifices to the Sardar if it would only make her wake.

Then he heard the most minute change in the way she breathed. A breath in became short, the smallest gasp. Shinji opened his eyes and watched as Rei's eyelids twitched then, as though it was a great effort, began to open.

"Rei!"

"No… more… interruptions."

End

* * *

Alright everyone, with Ramiel dead, you all know what that means.

Next time on Rebuild: A Warrior From A (Counter) Earth, Asuka Strikes!


	7. Chapter 7

Tal everyone!

I failed trying to get this out quicker. A thousand most sincere apologies. I hope you like how it came out though and I will try to be faster next time.

Please enjoy and if ya do, leave a review! If ya don't… leave a review anyway! I'm not picky!

We pick up right where we left off, with Rei awakening in hospital, young Shinji Cabot having kept a restless vigil while she recovered from the battle with Ramiel.

* * *

Rebuild: A Warrior From A (Counter) Earth: Chapter 7

"No… more… interruptions." These were her first words upon awakening.

Shinji rose as though thrown forward, his arms bracketing her shoulders, his fingers in her hair, his lips upon her lips. Only when he felt her attempt to gasp for breath did he relent, his nose hovering above hers, an elated smile upon his lips.

In short, ragged breaths, Rei regained herself. Her time since the defeat of the angel had not been placid sleep. It was not restful either. Her mind had been filled with so many unfamiliar feelings and memories. Some both new and exciting, other atavistic and frightening. Elusive details hid in the dark corners of skull, impossible to reach despite desperate searching. Instead of knowledge, Rei was instead left with feelings and impressions.

Rei's chest began to quickly rise and fall as her breathing turned from tired to a panic.

"Vana'she, your girl is sorry. She begs your mercy."

"Mercy? For what?" Shinji said, turning his head this way and that like a beast as he watched the signs of desperate fear raise across her face. "What is wrong?"

"It's… It's just… Vana'she wants to use his girl and everything still hurts." Rei continued, averting her eyes.

"Use you…? No, no, I am just happy you are have woken. I had thought I might have lost you forever."

"But Vana'she does want his girl…. Yes?"

"Yes...?"

"Then you musn't wait. It was foolish of your girl to ask mercy." Rei said, starting to pull at the sheet and hospital gown until Shinji's hands stilled her own.

"Look into my eyes, girl." He commanded, and she obeyed. "I will have your body when I want it, but that time is not now. If you are in pain then I am more concerned with that than my needs as a man. Do you understand me?"

Rei nodded.

"I asked you a question."

"Yes, my Vana'she."

"Good girl."

Rei gasped, then smiled more brightly than Shinji had ever seen her before. Her hands slipped his, her arms wrapping around his neck when the door opened and be-scrubbed doctors and nurses flooded into the room. Shinji was thrown out by the weight of the humanity coming between Rei and himself.

The gorean was not too bothered as he leaned against the wall beside to the door to wait.

She was awake. They were worried. Shinji shrugged.

He was not a physician, so it was not as though he would be of any help right now. Besides, warriors and physicians had a special relationship. Warriors loved physicians for healing them. Physicians hated warriors for sending so much work their way. However the warriors did not think it could not be true hate. After all, without all that work, they would surely be bored and poor.

Shinji yawned, the full weight of his exhaustion only now making itself known. Shinji crossed his arms over his chest and let his chin fall to his chest. He could close his eyes for just a moment. Other's were watching Rei, he had been relieved from his post for now.

Shinji woke to a boot prodding his leg. He was seated upon the cold floor, his legs to his chest with his arms across his knees.

"Hey there sleepyhead." Misato said. Shinji looked up and she smiled down at him. "How's our girl?"

"Hm? Awake. Pleased. Still in pain. How long have I sleep?"

"I think it has been about an hour and a half since she woke up."

Shinji groggily did a quick bit of math, running his index finger along his knuckles to count. A short nap, but just enough to take the edge of exhaustion off.

"The physicians crowded me out."

"Well, they are gone now. Come on." Misato offered her hand and Shinji accepted the aid to rise. His body, still bandaged in some places from his own wounds, protested. "They tell me she is ready to go home."

"Captain, she lives alone, I do not think that would be wise. Perhaps she could stay with us, if only for a few nights?"

Misato grinned. Behind the tough exterior, Shinji could be so caring when he wanted to be. "Sure! It's another for the victory party tonight."

"Oh, and how many will we have?"

"With Rei… three."

The warriors shared a chuckle and went in as the last nurse left.

Misato stopped mid-stride when she saw Rei… smile? It wasn't an off putting smile, it was just… unfamiliar.

"Vana'she!" She squealed before slapping her hands over her mouth, wide red eyes looking to Shinji.

Shinji quickly looked at Misato. She looked… surprised. Not cross, not terribly shaken, just surprised. If she had understood the word, her face did not show it. She would ask and Shinji needed to have an answer ready. For a lie to pass inspection would need to be a quick answer too.

"What was that, Rei?" Misato asked. Rei shook her head, hands still covering her lips. Shinji picked his moment and mounted his interception to head off this turning into a mess.

"Rei is a little embarrassed of me I guess." Shinji said, turning as he stepped to put himself between the captain and the girl. "The truth is our relationship… well you saw. That word… it is… a word from my language. It is hard to directly translate into English, it is something like protector. But a girl who loves a man very much could call him that, if you understand my meaning."

"Ooooh." Misato said. "Like honey or sweetheart."

"Exactly that kind of term, yes."

"Okay. There is no need to be embarrassed Rei. What happened before, I wasn't mad at you two for being in love. I just didn't like that you two were having sex."

"Thank you captain." Shinji said to Misato then looked back at Rei. The girl had trouble with these sorts of cues, he dearly hoped she would understand to go along with his half-truth. Her eyes met his again and held his gaze for a moment before once more looking away, towards Misato.

"May I go now?"

"Yes Rei, the doctors have cleared you to leave. However…" Misato's eyes turned to Shinji for a moment. "Shinji and I would feel better if you stayed with us for a few days."

"With you and Vana'she?"

"We're just worried about you. And yes, provided you both can agree to some rules, you can stay with…" Misato gave the gorean another look. "your vana'she."

Misato had to smile as Shinji looked at her slack jawed and Rei squeaked out a thank you. Misato shooed him out to let Rei get dressed. The young man was much more verbal about his indignation over it after a little bit of sleep, but did as he was bid and stood guard outside the door.

Misato had meant to step out as well, until she saw Rei move to stand up. Unflappable, stoic, Rei, who had shown more emotion squealing over a boy a moment ago than Misato had seen from her before, looked like she was ready to cry. Rei's pain was so clear Misato could feel the pain in her own bones, the stiffness in her own joints.

Rei's eyes were screwed shut, her teeth clenched and her lips drawn back. It had been easy before to separate herself from the pain. Before Rei had met Him. Before Rei had learned of her place in the world. Before decades of knowledge had flooded Rei's mind with the unbridled joy of existence and ebbed away as quickly.

One strong hand took Rei by the arm. Another touched the small of her back, soft skin touching hers through the gap in the hospital gown.

"I will help you." Misato said. Something within Rei told her that this woman recognized the girl for what she was. She had not asked if she needed help, nor asked if she could help. A warrior had told a slave girl what she meant to do, and done it.

This pleased Rei, and she felt a small bit of relief.

Misato guided Rei back down to sit on the hospital bed. Her fingers started on the knots holding the back of the gown together.

"Can you tell me what hurts?" She asked.

"Everything." Rei replied in a squeak.

"What kind of hurt is it, Rei?"

"I am sore. Everything is sore."

"I will be gentle."

"Thank you." Rei said. Another word escaped her lips before she could form the thought. "Avan'shea."

"What was that?" Misato asked.

"What was what?"

"What you said."

"Thank you?"

"After that."

"Nothing, I just… it hurt and I groaned. I am sorry." Rei lied. She had not thought the word her mouth had breathed and her tongue had formed. It just was. In the same way she had not known the meaning before it passed her lips.

As Vana'she was Master, Avan'shea was Mistress.

It was not the last thing Misato helped Rei with. Misato had never felt much of anything for Rei, but now she felt a sadness and an empathy for the red eyed girl. Rei could not even dress herself without stopping to whimper. So Misato helped her, from her panties to her bra to her dress to her shoes.

"Shinji, could you come in here please." Misato lifted Rei to her feet, keeping her hands over the girl's shoulders to steady her.

Shinji obeyed his captain. Rei rushed to embrace him, but only Misato's quick hands stopped her stumble from becoming a fall. Before she stood straight again, He was there. With His arms around her, Rei could stand aided by His strength.

The captain and her Vana'she, her master, were talking. Rei really didn't care to listen too closely.

"... Gentle with her. Maybe we should get a wheelchair."

"A what?"

"A chair with wheels on it, is that really such an not obvious word?"

"I've a better idea."

Rei squeaked as her master swiftly lifted her off the ground to carry her across his chest.

"Woah, I thought you were still, y'know, dealing with the gravity change."

Misato watched Shinji adjust his legs, his knees shaking only a little until he found more stable footing.

"She is light, and I am happy to do it. I…" Shinji looked to Rei's face and smiled. "We've rested enough."

"Well alright then, loverboy."

"Perhaps we should be on our way though…" Shinji said, adjusting his grip again.

"We should walk slow. Y'know, to be gentle."

"Captain…"

"Maybe a couple of extra laps…"

"Captain!"

Misato did not take them for extra laps, or even the long way. Shinji carried Rei without a single sound of complaint, though there was much groaning of effort. The boy strained until he was red in the face to put Rei down in the backseat of Misato's car without her feet ever touching the ground.

"Jashi, Vana'she." Rei said as he took the seat beside her, leaving the passenger seat beside Misato empty. Once he was seated, Rei lay against his shoulder, a small smile on her lips.

"And what does that mean?" Misato asked, securing her seatbelt.

"Thank you." they replied together. Misato looked back at the kids once before starting the engine. Rei's head was on Shinji's shoulder, and his own head was over hers.

Cute kids, she thought as she slid the Alpine into gear. Shinji could be a little asshole sometimes, but he was a teenage boy and that is how they are. At least he did not seem as mad about not getting his sword back anymore. Rei was really coming out of her shell with him too.

* * *

"I can walk."

"Are you sure?"

"Aye, Vana'she." Rei said, her hands nonetheless tightly holding onto his arm as she pulled herself out of the backseat.

"I think your confidence is unwarranted." Shinji said, laying his free hand over hers to hold them to his arm. "Keep hold of me. If you do not need it, I still have the pleasure of a pretty thing on my arm."

Rei giggled and whispered something to Shinji while Misato made a gagging face as she took the groceries from the trunk at the front of the Alpine. "You two are disgusting."

Misato slapped the trunk shut to find Shinji staring at her.

"Captain, I fear my linguistic abilities have failed me, did you just say we were-"

"It's a figure of speech." Misato said before holding out a grocery bag for him to take. She continued as they moved inside. "A couple being affectionate is called sweet. Well sweet is nice, but have you ever eaten something that had way too much sugar in it? Well, then it is disgusting."

"I see… I think." Shinji replied. Misato stepped into the elevator and the children followed. "So on what are we going to feast? I believe you only bought alcohol."

"Chef Suzuhara apparently thinks you're a little skinny, or me too… or everyone in the neighborhood if you go by how much food he sent his kids over with."

"Oh very good."

Shinji of Ko-Ro-Ba was quite familiar with wine. Warm mulled wine called paga was the drink of choice on much of Gor in fact. Rei Ayanami had partaken of this drink at the Suzuhara home and found it pleasant. Wine however was not often found in the apartment of Captain Misato Katsuragi, as she and her penguin quite preferred beer and spirits.

Thus it was seated around the table that Shinji asked Misato if he could try some of what the captain was drinking, and Rei partook as well.

Shinji commented that he quite enjoyed it, and asked of how this 'whisky' was produced. Rei began to feel warm.

The conversation moved on, but Rei was no longer listening. Instead she could not force herself to look away from Vana'she. Why, she thought to herself, was she sitting in a chair when he was right there and so close?

"So, how goes the repairs of the city and the evangelions?" Shinji asked.

"Good and bad." Misato replied, sipping at her tumbler. "Unit One we just had to swap out armor, its ready to go again. Most of downtown is going to be closed to vehicle traffic for a while though and Unit Zero is looking like a total loss."

"A single evangelion, and each angel has been more dangerous than the one before. These are not good odds."

"Won't be a problem for long. Unit Two and its pilot will be arriving soon. It is undergoing final work in Germany…" Misato said, then added after a moment. "Other side of the continent."

"Thank you. Tell me of the pilot."

"Her name is Asuka. She is a few months younger than you, really into martial arts so you'll have someone you can practice with." Misato said. Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "I haven't seen her in a few years."

"Hm…" Shinji sipped at his drink, thinking. He had seen enough of the warrior women of earth not to be bothered by the new pilot's gender. A fighter was good, but it did not escape Shinji's mind that Misato had spoke of martial arts, not military experience. It was perfectly possible to learn much about fighting and killing without a warrior's discipline to temper it.

Any man, or woman in this case, could wear crimson if they dared. They could gird themselves with weapons and wear the iron helm. They could fight whether it be in the name of glory, their homestone, or mere gold. None of that made a warrior, those things are not needful.

What makes a warrior is their codes and their adherence to them. Misato was right though, it would be good to have another to practice with and perhaps to learn from.

Shinji's thoughts were interrupted by Rei, who he had not even seen rise from her seat, touching his shoulder. When he sat up straight in his seat to look into her eyes, she sat down upon his lap, wrapping one hand around his shoulders and laying her head on his.

"Rei?!" Shinji started as she sat down without warning.

"Vana'she is warm…"

Misato laughed at Shinji's startled face and quiet little Rei sitting on his lap as easy as you please.

"Well…" Shinji said, one arm around Rei's waist to steady her. "I would say spirits agree with you, Rei."

"Mmmhm." Rei mumbled, shifting on his lap. "Vana'she, it's hot. I'm hot."

The beer had just started to pass Misato's lips when she saw Rei shrug out of the top of her uniform dress and reach for the buttons of her blouse. Misato nearly choked on beer that was not otherwise trying to escape out her nose.

"Ack-gah, blah. Goddamn Rei, no more whisky for you."

Three buttons open and her white cotton bra open to the air, Rei wrapped herself around Shinji's shoulder again.

"Better."

Shinji adjusted his hold on Rei to keep her steady and looked to Misato, who was presently splitting her attention dabbing at alcohol on her shirt and looking at him quite suspiciously.

"Captain, what could I have done to earn such a glare?"

"I better never catch you taking advantage of her being such a lightweight."

"I've never even given her alcohol, have I? You gave her the whisky. And if by taking advantage of her you mean indulging in bodily pleasures, it is hardly as if alcohol is required for Rei to be willing…"

Shinji stopped talking as Rei started mumbling in his ear in a slurred mix of Japanese, English and a few choice words of Gorean. Across three different languages the words were a mess, but the meaning was quite clear.

"On that matter in fact…" Shinji said, slowly goading Rei to move and placing her hands on the table to balance so he could stand. The red-eyed girl was becoming insistant and explicit, and using words Captain Katsuragi could understand and would not like the meaning of.

"What? What's wrong?" Misato asked, watching Shinji finally lifting Rei by the bum off his lap and holding her up as he rose to his feet.

"Lady Rei has requested that we adjourn to my quarters to continue upon where we left off when you interrupted."

"Hold on just a minute there." Misato said. "First we need to have a talk."

"About...?" Shinji asked, his head askew. "I assure you I do not require instruction and I do believe I can handle any questions the good lady may have."

"Shinji, I'm not sure how they go about this where you are from. Is there something a woman or a man does during sex to make sure…" Misato began, almost relieved when Shinji picked up her meaning and interrupted.

"Oh! By the Sardar in their mountains, how many times do I have to tell you I am not a savage? Yes, there are contraceptive medicines freely available to women in my city. Most women of our age have already begun using it." Shinji said, holding the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "Don't tell me you still use livestock intestines like a bunch of barbarians."

"What?! Fuck, ew, no. Goddamn, I just wanted to make sure nobody gets pregnant and give you guys some condoms."

"What are condoms?"

"Rubber sheaths to collect any, y'know…"

"Artificial livestock intestines then."

Rei was growing tired of these conversations which had a habit of arising between the captain and her master. They always derailed so quickly. There was a place she wanted to be and a thing she wanted to be doing and it was not here and talking about this.

"I am barren." Rei said, a little louder than either Shinji or Misato had been speaking. Both warriors snapped their heads around to look at her.

"I see." Shinji responded after a moment of silence.

"Oh Rei honey, I'm sorry I didn't know."

"I presume that supersedes the rest of the planned conversation?" Shinji asked impatiently.

"Um...yeah." Misato said. "Uh, well I guess… be, uh, careful you two. You both are still recovering."

Shinji swiftly had Rei in his room and the door shut. Even as the warrior helped her down to his sleeping mat, she was pulling at her clothes and his.

"Take me, master." Rei whined in English and loudly enough Shinji was becoming worried.

"Ssssh, wait girl." Shinji said, pushing her hands away so he could see to her clothes himself. Her clumsy hands were making little progress. She began to pull on his shirt instead. Shinji ground his teeth, she wasn't being quiet, she was getting louder.

"Master!" She said, loudly, in English, and far more clearly than her slurred mumbling at the table.

Shinji let go of her dress and slapped his hand down over her mouth. "Girl, be silent. Now!"

Rei's eyes were locked on his. His angry eyes and bared teeth.

"When I command, you will obey. Do you understand me, kajira?"

Gone was half intoxicated haze. Rei nodded quickly, her red eyes full of momentary fear. Master had not treated her this way before. She had longed for it but having now received it, it terrified her.

"Speak quietly and be careful of what you say in earshot of the captain." Shinji said, lifting his hand from her mouth.

"Yes master." Rei whispered.

"Good girl. Now get your clothes off."

"Will you take me as your slave now?" Rei asked, bunching her blouse and dress together to pull it over her head. Once the garments were off, she looked at Shinji with pleading eyes in the dim light.

"No girl, not tonight."

"Please, pleeease my master…" Rei said as tears welled in her eyes.

"No."

"But you swore…"

"I did, but you are not yet ready. You are still in pain and you're injuries have yet to heal."

"I cannot bear to wait, please master I beg of you." Rei cried, pulling away from him and grasping at his chest. Her red eyes were redder still with desperate tears. "Your slave girl begs of you."

"Not until you are more recovered, I will not take you as I will take a slave. Tonight I will take you as the free woman Rei Ayanami. Because I do not wish to hurt you. You are after all the most precious thing I will own."

"Your most precious?"

"Yes, my most precious."

"Always?"

"Would you have me say sweet nothings to you, Rei?"

"No, but…"

Shinji silenced her with a kiss and Rei melted before him.

What followed was not a world shattering event. It was not the best that ever was or anything like it. The sounds they made were quiet and in pain as much as pleasure, their sore bodies protesting. They had begun before the angel arrived, on the floor of Rei's apartment. This was merely finishing the act.

Rei's squeal when he entered her turned into a deep groan as her body accepted him again, as she was fulfilled by him again. True to his words he was tender tonight, not at all like the first time. Then he had used her body, but not tonight. Instead of holding her down, his hands found her most sensitive spots where a gentle squeeze or a scratch sent her mind reeling.

Her body shuddered and Rei cried out from the pain as much as anything else as she softly climaxed. He finished only a moment after. Rei laid still, breathing heavily while Master got up once and returned. She did not consider what he might be doing, she had little enough capacity for thought at the moment.

Soon though her master returned and Rei was more than pleased to press herself against his body when he wrapped his arms around her.

"Good girl Rei, you did well."

"Jashi, Vana'she." Thank you Master, Rei said, a swift heat rising in her cheeks at just saying those words. "I like it when you say my name."

"Cherish it. There will come a time when it is yours no longer and I will name you as my slave."

"What will you call me then?"

"Whatever I wish. Perhaps I will not name you at all, and you will only be a slave girl. Perhaps I will give you the name Rei, though it would not be your name…"

"Because it will be the name my master gives me."

"Aye."

"Good night, Master."

"Good night, girl."

* * *

Shinji of Ko-Ro-Ba took one deep breath before he began. First, he closed his fingers around the knurled steel. Then he pulled down with his chest and shoulders and only when he felt his muscles pull tight across his torso did he engage his arms. Shinji ground his teeth and pulled his hands downward with all of the strength he could muster across his upper body

Slowly, and with halting progress, Shinji's heels, then his toes, rose. His captain, Misato Katsuragi, called out to him.

"Come on, lift your legs!"

Shinji's abdominals burned as he raised his knees up above his waist. Finally, Shinji felt his chin rise above his hands.

"And one!"

Shinji groaned and let himself drop back down, his bare feet touching down on the plastic stool set beneath him. He really was not this weak. Back home Shinji could complete at least a score of chin-ups like this without stopping. It was the ridiculous gravity of Earth.

Shinji and Misato were in the small gym on the first floor of the apartment building. Like the building, they had it to themselves. Which was good because even one more person moving around would have made it crowded. Even with mirrors lining the walls it was clear that the space holding only a couple exercise bikes, a rack of weights and a lifting cage with olympic bar, the top of which Shinji was using for chin-ups, had been converted from an apartment. Or maybe half of one.

Shinji wore his school issued gym clothes, a red cuffed white T-shirt and blue shorts. Misato, not actually doing any exercise herself but instead acting as Shinji's 'coach', wore grey sweats emblazoned with the NERV logo.

As well she wore a whistle on a line about her neck which Shinji could not divine the purpose of. Perhaps it was like a tarn whistle and summoned that strange little bird of hers?

"Do you need a break?" Misato asked him, one hand on his back.

"No!" Shinji snapped, letting go of the bar and swatting her hand away. He was head and shoulders above her, standing on a stool so he could reach the bar without jumping.

"Maybe high reps with free weights would be more your speed for now..."

"I'm fine."

It was day one in the gymnasium for Shinji. A medical examination after the fifth angel had shown, he was told, that his gain in muscle mass to compensate for the higher gravity of Earth as compared to Gor was not what it should have been. As such, Shinji had been assigned a regimen of 'physical therapy'. As if he was an invalid or something.

Not helping matters was that he was still sore from last night. And the night before that. And the day before that when Rei had finally woken up. The girl had been quite adamant about no more interruptions and rather insistant, not that he minded. In fact by his own reckoning he'd plenty of exercise of late. All of it 'low impact' and 'explosive' as they might say here.

"Alright, well get back on the horse then."

"The tarn. The phrase is get back on the tarn."

"Whatever."

Shinji took the bar in hand once more and began to lift himself again as Misato moved to stand in front of him. Damned woman must mean to catch him like a falling infant.

Rei was a good girl. Since waking she had spent nearly every moment at his side, waking and restful. What she lacked in experience and skill she certainly made up for in enthusiasm and an eagerness to learn. She had already learned enough Gorean to say the most salacious things of how she wished to yield to him next, all with Misato none the wiser! Shinji had explained that the good Lady Rei was using words from his language that meant lover and sweetheart, when the girl was blushing over calling him her master openly. And the captain had believed him!

After the battle and his vigil at Rei's bedside, Misato had given up all resistance to any sex between them. In fact Rei had only left their apartment this morning at Misato's insistence to get more clothing and toiletries. However she had begun to express curiosity over more… advance techniques.

"Oh goddamit Shinji, could you at least stick it in your waistband or something, Christ!"

His mind having wandered to pleasant things, Shinji had once again raised his chin above the bar. However that did place his hips and so his body's expression of arousal in front of Misato's face, separated by only two layers of fabric.

"My apologies." Shinji said as he dropped back down.

"How do you even have it in you? You two have been going at it day and night!"

Misato watched the boy shrug with a big stupid smile on his face. The little shit. Him and Rei had been getting up to it more in the last two days than Misato had in the last two years.

Misato rolled her eyes. "Boys…"

"Captain, I am no child."

"Fine, men, ugh!" Misato said, sticking her tongue out to him. "Get moving, eight more of these and you still have push-ups and sit-ups to do and then the exercise bike."

"Aye, Captain…"

* * *

Misato yanked the emergency break up hard, drifting the Alpine onto the highway before slamming the lever back down and straightening out. This stretch of road was once a route through the mountains. In post-impact Japan it was the scenic coastal highway.

"I can see the angel now, activate task One-Zero-One!" Misato yelled into her phone. "Shinji get your ass in here!."

Shinji had hoisted himself halfway out the passenger window, holding onto the roof of the car with his ass on the door. He was watching the unbelievably tall and fragile looking angel walk upon the ocean, steps freezing the salt water beneath and heedless of the massed fleet of steel ships in its path. The thunder and flash of their guns did not faze it.

" _Negative Captain Katsuragi. Task Two-Zero-Two is already in effect._ "

"Two?" Misato startled. "No way!"

Shinji looked up and saw a sparkle of light drop from a trio of black arrowheads high in the sky.

As the second fleet was impaled on spears of blood red water below, Unit Two spread its limbs and fired its S-type boosters briefly to stabilize.

"Loslasse EM Armbrust." Asuka said, calmly. Evenly. Asuka knew, as all pilots knew, that no matter what happens, when speaking over the radio you must always be calm and clear.

Asuka applied the smallest pressure to the control yokes, nimble fingers tapping at the controls as the angel turned its attention upwards. A green light blinked in the corner of Asuka's vision, as she maneuvered her evangelion around the black spikes shooting up from below. The angel's razor sharp tentacles missed by meters but to Asuka it may as well have been miles. After all it does not matter by how far the attack has been avoided. To think about a danger that has passed in the distraction of an amatuer. Asuka's mind was on the coming danger and the move to avoid it, and then the move after that, and after that, and after that.

Asuka spared a moment's attention for blinking green icon moving towards her position. She didn't like how the path of descent was looking to intercept with her own.

"Hm." Going to have to do something about that, Asuka thought.

Unit Two boosted upwards, right arm extended. The right hand closed, the evangelion tucked, rolled, and when its legs and airfoils were once more spread against the wind, the EM crossbow was sighted downwards, crossmembers snapping into place.

Asuka fired once, twice, then a three bolt burst. The angel's 'head' exploded and the black gossamer body began to disintegrate.

"Nein, erzähl es der Oma." Asuka said, keeping the weapon on target. It came as no shock when there were suddenly many, many, more black tentacles reaching for her Unit Two. Far more than she could avoid for any length of time. Asuka's gaze flicked to the magazine indicator for the crossbow. Far more attacks than she could drive off with this weapon either.

Asuka aimed for the mass of the fast approaching black spears and held down the trigger.

"Loslasse progressiv klinge _Terminus Est_." Asuka said. A new green dot began falling towards her position.

Tha magazine indicator reached zero. Asuka tapped a button and released the empty crossbow as Unit Two fired its full complement of thrusters to shoot straight up. The black spears converged where the evangelion would have been, but instead skewered the empty crossbow, the self destruct mechanism of which Asuka had primed. The explosion was modest, but it created an opening as Unit Two rendezvoused its next weapon. And one opening was all Asuka ever needed.

Asuka found using melee weapons in an evangelion different from projectile weapons. There was a much more visceral connection, a much closer synchronicity with the full control necessary to use such a weapon as opposed to the layers of targeting and assistance programs in place with ranged weapons.

As Unit Two's hands closed around the deeply cut handle of the massive progressive sword still shrouded in in an aerodynamic shell, Asuka felt that true and deep connection. She felt the diamonds of steel pressing into her palm. She felt the jolt of vibration as explosive bolts cleared the shroud away and the blade came to life. The crossguards snapped down into place from their travel positions flat against the edges as the blade roared like thunder.

 _Terminus Est_ , literally 'this is the end'. Asuka had named this final product of her mother's work. Nearly as tall her evangelion, the wide shovel head of the monstrous weapon had reminded her of an executioner's sword and so she had named it after a like weapon from _The Book of the Old Sun_. It was far too big to attempt to thrust with, but anything too tough to cut through could well be crushed beneath the force required to move such a thing.

Unit Two's broughts its legs to its chest and opened its flaps, spinning in a summersault through the hole blasted open by the detonation of the EM crossbow. Below was the angel, one huge red core now.

Airfoils and rocket nozzles adjusted as Unit Two arched its body with the great sword overhead. Asuka flicked away a warning as she disabled all limiters and restrictions on power use and fuel consumption.

Below, Shinji could only now see the shape of the red evangelion, a ridiculous sword held in both hands before a burst of fire sent it straight downwards.

 _Terminus Est_ passed through the angel. Whether there was resistance or not was imperceptible. A great many details are lost, after all, when the executioner's sword falls with hundreds of thousands of tons of mass and force behind it.

A sudden wave sent Misato's alpine skidding across the broad road. When Shinji recovered his wits, it appeared to him as though a rainstorm had come as water fell from the sky. All that still stood was the crimson evangelion, waist high in the red water, the tip of its massive sword buried in the sea bed below. Steam rising from the sea and the evangelion completed the illusion of a storm.

* * *

Shinji watched from the walkway beside the mouth of one of the great service elevators that led to the Geofront. Evangelion unit two was being brought in, recumbent over several parallel trains. Even in the hot sun, Shinji's clothes had not quite dried out yet from the thorough drenching he had received along with Misato and her car. Rei stood beside him with her hand entwined with his and her head on his shoulder, still in her plug suit. A plan to put her in Unit One had been aborted when Asuka took the field.

"Tal, Shinji. Rei." Kensuke Aida said, mounting the nearby staircase to the platform. He sounded casual, bored. The exotic greeting had become normal.

"Tal, Kensuke." Shinji said, looking at him with eyebrows raised. "What are you doing here?"

Rei said nothing. It had been a thought of her own that her master had approved of. Unless it concerned their mission, the conversations of free persons were really not something she needed to pay attention to unless something was required of her.

"A new evangelion arrives, you seriously think I'm going to miss it?" Kensuke said, lifting his camera to his eyes. The tips of the evangelion's pylons had begun to pass their position.

"So the second unit is red. Fitting for a warrior, right Shinji?" kensuke said, his camera clicking away to captures series of images with each press by Kensuke's finger.

"Aye, like a red comet."

"The differences don't end with color!"

The young men and Rei looked up into the glare of the sun. Perched atop Unit 02's chest, arms akimbo with the afternoon sun as her halo, stood a valkyrie in crimson. As Shinji's eyes adjusted and the pilot moved, sliding down the armor plating of the giant, Shinji saw brilliant fire red hair, surmounted by… horns? No, only the A-10 nodes. That color though, he'd only seen twice before. The leader of his city, Matthew, had hair that color flecked with steel and so too did his son, Shinji's teacher.

"My Unit Two's S-Type equipment gives her three times greater mobility than the test type and the prototype! She is the first true evangelion, constructed specifically for battle!"

"She is…" Shinji began softly, his sore muscles protesting as his body tensed in anticipation of battle.

"The ace of the European Forces..." Misato explained, stepping out from the enormous elevator the railway line was taking the evangelion into.

"Asuka Cabot Shikinami." Misato finished.

"No… that can't be." Shinji said to himself, just above a whisper.

"Vana'she?" Rei said as her hands, still covered in the rubbery grip surface of the plugsuit, wrapped around Shinji's arm. What was wrong, why was master so tense?

Shinji watched her gracefully skip down the recumbent evangelion. She moved like a sailor on the lines of a ship, like she was born to walk the angular and slippery shapes without a thought. It was not just her hair that now screamed her identity. Everything from the grade of her nose, her cheekbones, the blue of her eyes, her lanky and powerful limbs, even her long musicians fingers.

"Misato, long time no see!"

"You're dead!" Shinji blurted out.

"Is that a threat skinny kid?" Asuka said, snapping around to glare at him.

"No, you… Sardar take me, Tarl thought you were dead!" Shinji said, pointing at Asuka.

With that Asuka was incensed, her muscles visibly tense through her plug suit as she turned on Shinji with the look of a lioness in her eyes. "WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT TARL CABOT?"

She moved like wildfire, crossing the distance between them in an instant. With her face so close, Shinji could see his teacher all the more clearly.

"He said your name was…"

"Don't you fucking say it!" Shinji felt her hot breath on his face. Rei shrunk back from the woman's anger and Shinji raised a hand to shield her, to separate the females.

It was perhaps a combination of the stiffness of his own muscles and his surprise at her identity. Or perhaps Shinji had simply let himself become distracted, or maybe there was not a way he could have avoided what happened next in his present condition.

One foot swept Shinji's legs out from under him. He felt his head knock the concrete and when he opened his eyes she was standing over him, straddling his legs.

"My name is Asuka Cabot Shikinami. My other name? Only my mother uses that one. If you use it, I'm going to knock your teeth in. Now tell me what you know about Tarl Cabot."

"He is my teacher." Shinji replied.

"And who the fuck are you?"

"Asuka!" Misato was over him now, one hand on Asuka's chest. "He's the pilot of Unit 01."

"This is Shinji Ikari?" Asuka asked, aghast. This guy?!

"Cabot actually." Shinji said from the ground.

Asuka's attention snapped back to Shinji. "Why did you just call yourself that?"

"Because I carry the name of the man who raised me as his son with pride."

"Do you mean to tell me that my father, Tarl Cabot the barbarian deadbeat, left me alone for years, kidnapped Commander Ikari's son, raised him like his own, and told everyone that I was dead?"

"Well… yes? Are you angry?"

"Third child, I am something beyond furious." Asuka said, shoving Misato's hand off before turning away to leave. "And you, with the camera! Who the hell are you? Who gave you permission to take pictures?"

Shinji rose stiffly, one hand up to decline assistance from Misato or Rei. Tarl's daughter, Asuka, had turned her attention to Kensuke now. Shocking as it was that she lived, Shinji couldn't say he was happy about it. He was happy for Tarl, a little bit anyway. He felt sorry for his teacher a good deal more, should he ever reunite with his child.

* * *

Temporary peace was made by separating the Cabot 'siblings', however later that day Shinji was sent down to a practice room that had been set up to 'make nice' with Asuka. Shinji entered what had been a large storage space to find the ground covered in foam mats that squeaked beneath his boots and the walls line with racks of imitation metal weapons.

Practice weapons Shinji supposed, though such things were not used on Gor. Shinji had learned with sticks and staves before being given edged weapons. In sparring and training, thick leather sheaths were tied over blades. A bit like how the barbarians equipped themselves for intercourse.

The room was lit by unnatural bright white lights above, the kind that always gave off the low, infernal buzzing noise. Asuka was already present, dressed in a form fitting black outfit that covered everything from her neck to her wrists, to her feet, where she wore lightweight red and white shoes. She was moving through the motions of combat when Shinji entered.

"Lady Asuka." Shinji said, as politely as he knew how under the circumstances. This woman was high caste, being Tarl's daughter and fancying herself a warrior. Shinji just needed to placate her pride and all would be mended.

"Hey third." Asuka said, one hand on her hip.

"You were quite skilled earlier. Though you may find the comparison offensive, I mean only praise when I say that you clearly have the strength of your father."

"No I don't. I have my own strength because I work every day to be the very best." Asuka said. "Did you come down here to start training or just to try and patronize me, Third?"

"I think I would enjoy a spar." Shinji said, gritting his teeth to stay calmwith very grating girl.

"Tell you what Third." Asuka said, lazily lifting a blunted longsword from the wall with two fingers. With just a flick, she spun the sword along its guard to hold it with her strong hand high on the grip. "Let's have us a wager just to make it interesting."

"What do you propose, _Lady Asuka_?" Shinji spat out her name, hissing out the S and snapping the K such it sounded like a cat spitting.

Asuka stepped back towards the gorean. "Some sparring, just touching."

Asuka held the practice weapon, not much shorter than herself, straight out with her right hand, her left hand resting on her hip. The tip hovered just to the left of the boy's head, past his peripheral vision. Perfectly still of course. It was a power move, and Asuka's favorite psych out.

The gorean did not flinch. The cocky ass, Asuka thought. Impressive, but not overly. Some people are just too stupid to avoid getting stabbed in the face.

"You do want to touch me, don't you?"

"The wager, woman."

"For each touch we receive, we shed one article of clothing. The first one to be nude, or to forfeit out of modesty, loses."

Shinji crossed his arms across his chest. "Accepted."

Asuka let the tip of the sword fall and touch his shoulder with a smile. She thought it was a seductive smile, but it made Shinji think of a sleen, a cunning and vicious predator.

"Well that is first touch." Asuka said, spinning the sword back to rest across her shoulders. "So take it off."

Shinji stepped back and away from her, then pulled the white shirt over his head. Sardar take the stupid buttons. He cast the shirt to the ground and began to browse the racks for a weapon.

"I'm waiting…"

Wait till the ground opens and swallows you up, Shinji grumbled. He found an edgeless steel sword with a thin but stout blade about the length of his arm, a good size for a single handed weapon. A cage of wire wrapped around the grip to protect the hand. Most of the shields were full metal, but far too small. Shinji found one wide enough to be passable, made of wicker covered in cloth.

"Now we may begin, woman." Shinji said as he turned to face Asuka. Or he would have. He got as far as 'now' before she charged with that enormous sword moving faster than she had any right to, a woman so burdened.

"Lay on!" She cried. She launched her attack hands first, her fingers loose and her blade still pointing back and over her head, and Shinji reacted on instinct, taking the obvious opening and cutting at her hands held forward. It was foolish to present such vulnerable targets with no protection. Too late he saw the trap.

Asuka's fingers snapped shut and her sword swung down with a burst of speed. Shinji's probing cut to her hands was crushed and it was only by years of training and no small amount of luck that he brought his shield upwards to protect his head. The result was little better though. Asuka's strike had pushed his sword hand down and across his chest. With the pressure on his shield, Shinji was stuck with both hands locked down and his weight trapped too far forward. And with his shield up, he was blind besides.

Then the pressure changed and Shinji was off his feet. He bounced off the floor by his shoulders and managed only to turn himself to face upwards when the tip of her blunt longsword poked him in the ribs.

"Two." Asuka sneered down at the gorean. This little twerp was disappointing. His attack had crumpled and when he hid under his shield it had been too easy to turn their bind into a throw, leveraging his own weapons against and using her federschwert like a lever to pull him over her hip and cast him to the ground.

Asuka took two steps back, bringing her longsword up to her shoulder.

"You gotta take off something else now, third."

Shinji said nothing and set the sword and shield aside, taking off his heavy leather boots. The gorean made to stand then stopped and sat down again, pulling off his socks as well.

"Oooh, taking a handicap." Asuka chuckled. "I would have let you count yours shoes as one and each sock as another.

Shinji ignored her. His bare feet would give better traction. Situated, he rose once again, sword in one hand, shield in the other.

"Again." The gorean said, his shield raised away from his body, his sword held low with the tip in line with his opponent's face. Certain assumptions about his opponent had been dispelled in the initial exchange. Her weapon though large could move very quickly. She had no aversion to engaging in wrestling. And most striking of all, she was stronger than he was.

Asuka launched her attack in the same fashion. She transitioned seamlessly from a casual stance to a fighting position, one leg bent forward and the other back, her sword pushing out from her shoulder and her grip loose at first. This time the tip of the sword swung in from the high diagonal to Shinji's right.

Asuka had expected him to hide beneath his shield again. Her quick analysis had been that the gorean had been taught to fight like a hoplite, safe behind the shield wall. Thus attacking at his unprotected side would force him to bind himself up again by crossing his body with his shield arm.

Shinji punched out with his sword, the wire basket guard catching Asuka's sword with a punishing vibration through his arm.

Asuka began to wind her sword, to twist the blade around and strike the gorean with the short edge. That was her last thought before her bottom jaw slammed into her upper as Shinji brought his shield under her chin in an uppercut that dragged the wicker across her face.

"Ena!" Shinji barked.

Asuka instinctively shut her eyes and knew her mistake immediately. She tried to gather backwards and recover, but she felt the pressure leave her sword and something roll across her right arm. Then the burning sting as the whippy metal sword struck across her back from her right, the hard punch of the guard coming down on her right shoulder.

"Duo!"

Shinji had taken a risk, turning away from his opponent in combat. However he had kept in contact with her and by touch he knew where she was. He swung blind as he left her and felt the way his guarded hand struck her arm while his blade slapped her across the shoulders.

Shinji gathered himself to face Asuka, looking at her back from her right side and the haughty girl still recovering. He had matched her, now it was time to pull ahead.

It took only a flick of the wrist to whip her behind the knee with the rolled tip of his sword.

"Tria!" Shinji said, Asuka's knee buckling. Shinji had a banquet of choices before him to strike next, but it was at this point that the warrior became more prideful than he had right to be.

"Tessera!"

Shinji brought his leg up to thrust down at her back and send her to the floor. And that was when he saw Asuka turning letting herself fall in order to spin and face him from the floor.

Asuka's sword clattered to the ground. She grabbed Shinji's foot with both hands. The gorean had just enough time to see how disconcerting it was for her to smile with blood running over her lips from her nose, before she flung him face first into the ground.

"Three! And speak English, 'cause I don't speak asshole."

Shinji lifted himself from the ground. Asuka already stood and was stripping off garments, stepping out of her leggings. Shinji remembered their terms and pulled off his own pants.

"Alright, I got one question for you before we finish this." Asuka said with a bloody smile. It disturbed Shinji. Something about the way that instead of wiping off the blood, she showed no sign of having been injured at all sent shivers down his back. She was barely a woman! She should be asking mercy or offering herself, not grinning like some slaughter mad raider.

"Does Tarl Cabot fight like you?" Asuka asked. She stood now in only her undergarments, a black brassiere and high cut panties that disappeared between her flanks.

"He taught me much." Shinji answered, finding his feet. "So I would think our methods bear a likeness."

"Can't you give a simple answer?"

"Tis not a simple question for a warrior."

"Hmph." Asuka looked down her nose at the gorean with his sword and shield raised. "Well if there is any similarity at all, you'll be a great sparring partner. Because when I find that man, I intend to kill him."

"You would kill your own father who you've-"

"Tell you what, third!" Asuka interrupted, reaching one hand behind her back. "My shoes, my top and my bottoms were three. I wasn't going to give you that fourth one since it ended with you face down on the floor, but I'm feeling generous."

There was a click, and Shinji watched with a suddenly blank mind as Asuka removed her bra and dropped it to the ground.

"W-what in the name of the priest kings are you doing?"

"Abiding by the rules of our bet." Asuka replied. She looked at her sword on the ground then shook her head. "I think I have your number. I'm going to finish this with my bare hands. Do what you want."

And so Shinji watched as the nearly naked young earth woman with the fiery hair and the devil's smile lowered her body into a fighting stance, her open hands front and center with her fingers curved like claws. Granted he was wearing only underwear himself, but he was a man and that was different.

"This is ridiculous. It would be a farce to fight you."

"It'll be a farce when I shove that sword up your ass."

Shinji dropped the sword and shield to the floor and raised his fists. "As you'd have it then."

* * *

Dr. Akagi entered the command bridge to the unusual sight. She looked up from her reports, staring over the rim of her glasses at two shifts of bridge technicians standing over one console. Ritsuko approached them with none having noticed her presence, or at least reacted to it.

"Two thousand yen on Ikari."

One dark eyebrow shot up.

"He goes by Cabot. Or just call him Shinji."

Maya was participating in this?

"... and he is still fighting gravity. I'll match you two thousand on Asuka."

Ritsuko cleared her throat and six suddenly tense faces turned to greet her.

"And just what is going on here?"

"Sempai! Oh, well...uh."

Aoba spoke up. Maya thought his usual nihilism must have extended to suicide by what came out of his mouth.

"The second and third child are fighting and we're placing bets."

"And it's awesome!" Makoto Hyuga interjected. "Come here, check this out."

"Lieutenant Hyuga, the pilots fighting is unacceptable, and certainly not a matter to..." Ritsuko started to say, until enough bodies moved aside that she could actually see the console screen. There were several camera feeds from the room set up for the pilots to practice in.

"Gamble… over…"

Ritsuko's annoyance had vacated her mind, along with everything else not related to watching and analyzing what she was seeing.

Two bodies in furious and opposing motion, physics expressed as Ares and Athena, both alike in fury. So similar and so alien.

"Um, Doctor Akagi…"

"Be still Lt. Agano." Ritsuko shushed the relief shift tech, her eyes flitting from one camera feed to another as a bee to flowers. "My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Ditto, Sempai!"

Ritsuko spared Maya a look from the corner of her eye. "Ditto?"

"Uuum."

"Now everyone just shut up. And get me some paper. And a fresh pack of cigarettes. And here, five thousand yen on the second child." Ritsuko said, fishing a bill out of her lab coat.

* * *

One eye shut, Shinji felt Asuka's thumb bounce on his eye socket as her punch slipped by his head. He had pulled to the side just in time. Shinji turned his chest towards her arm and grabbed her limb in both hands before she could pull away.

By the Sardar this red haired monster of a woman was quick! Shinji had only just established his hold to lift her by her arm and hopefully compel her by pain when he felt her leg behind his. Only by releasing her arm and throwing a shallow elbow to Asuka's chest did he escape her hold and the hip throw that would have put him flat on his ass.

Shinji nearly stumbled before spreading his feet and dropping his hips, his arms low and held near together before him. Asuka retreated one step, on the balls of her feet with her fists raised. They were both short of breath, both with bloody knuckles and both sporting a number of scrapes and bruises besides.

"Ready to surrender, Third?" Asuka said between breaths. The smile that so disturbed Shinji returned to her face for a moment.

"I would say the wager is long over Lady Asuka. You are a fine warrior."

If this smile was disturbing, the laugh that followed was absolutely bone chilling.

"Flattery will get you nowhere. If you give up I promise to show you the same courtesy a warrior would a show a woman." Asuka said. Her smile stretched across her face when she saw Shinji twitch. "Don't worry, I won't collar you. I'll just have my way!"

Shinji could do nothing as Asuka suddenly leapt like a cat, taking him from the ground and landing on top of him as they hit the ground together, Shinji's bare back sliding across the floor. Shinji's composure broke and he barked in pain when Asuka slammed his wrists down, his arms outstretched. There was a stillness then, Shinji held on the floor by Asuka straddling him and pinning his arms down. Her long hair was loose and formed a curtain around their faces with copper hued twilight between them.

"So tell me Third, if this was reversed, and by that I mean I was a man and you were a woman, what comes next?" Asuka asked. "And before you answer, I am all for equal opportunity, I'm just phrasing the question that way so you know exactly what I am talking about."

"Get off me."

"Then get me off. Or get me off you, I'm good either way."

"Woman, let me up this instant or I will-" Shinji snarled, struggling to no avail.

"Or you'll what!?" Asuka cut him off, pressing her weight down on him until his struggling did not move her at all.

Asuka began to move her hips over Shinji's own. "You see Third, I want you to understand a very specific point I am trying to make here. If the situation was reversed, what happens next? Well in your neanderthal brain I would think, taking into account your cultural background and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, that I would rape you. I might even keep you, like a pet, or a toy. I would brainwash you into thinking that not only are you enjoying yourself, but that this was the only true way of things."

Asuka brought her face closer to Shinji's, until he had no choice but to breath in what she breathed out.

"But I'm not gonna do that. Because not only am I stronger than the big tough gorean warrior, I'm a human fucking being and not a monster."

Asuka smiled again and Shinji turned his head away his clenched teeth revealed by pulled back lips. He showed her the swollen left side of his face, where her punch had nearly taken his eye out.

"And just one more thing before I let you go. Rei saw you get your ass kicked and I saw how you two were getting on. She's been watching the last few minutes, didn't notice that did you?"

And with that Asuka threw her head back and let out the most obscene noise. Shinji winced against the sudden bright light.

"Oh god yes!" Asuka said before devolving into laughter and rolling off him. Shinji looked up to see Rei for a moment through the doorway before she rushed away.

* * *

"Dammit, stop looking at me like that." Misato said, arms crossed over her chest. She was sharing an elevator with Kaji, heading towards the room that had been set up for the pilots to practice in.

"I'm just looking at you." Kaji said with a shrug, hands in his pockets.

"No, you are looking at me like _that_." Misato said, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Whatever do you mean?"

Misato grabbed his arm and pulled him close enough to whisper.

"You are looking at me like I'm about to suck you off or something."

Kaji grinned. "Well well I know what's on your mind."

Misato growled and shoved his arm away. "You know what I mean. You've always been able to do that look."

"Hey, I'm just looking at you. Not that I would say no if…"

Misato raised a knife hand just under his nose. "One more word, Kaji."

Kaji could not help but smile. She had always been cute when she was so mad that that vein over her eye started to pop out. He made a zipper gesture across his lips, still smiling and _looking_ at her.

"You better not look at Asuka like that." Misato said, moving to other side of the elevator and looking away from him.

"Ew, no. Beautiful girl, will make someone very happy, but she is like a little sister."

"Not a daughter?"

"Pfff, Katsuragi I am nowhere near old enough to settle down. Come on, if you really want a date, you can just ask."

"Keep dreamin' Kaji."

"Dinner and a movie?"

"Nope."

"Netflix and chill?"

"Uh. No."

"Quickie in the supply closet?"

The elevator stopped and Misato was quickly out the door.

"Byyyye Kaji." Misato said, turning just in time to see one of the strangest sights of her career. Shinji was wearing nothing but his underwear, the front of which looked positively soaked. That was not at all helped by his flesh beneath straining against the fabric.

"You are a _louse_ , Shinji Cabot." Rei said, tears running down her cheeks. Her hands were balled into fists at her side as she marched towards Misato.

"Rei, wait." He said in a low but angry tone.

"No." She said, without breaking her stride. Without facing him. Shinji ground his teeth and reached to grasp her arm. The girl was not listening to him.

"Girl, stop and-" Shinji said, fingers closing around her bicep. Then, like water through his fingers, her arm was gone and she was turning.

"No!" Rei said, louder and sharper than Shinji had ever heard her speak before. In his mind he was critiquing himself for overreaching to grab her this way, because her pale hand was quickly rising and growing ever larger in his vision as it came speeding towards him.

The CRACK of skin upon skin echoed through the hall.

Rei was experiencing another new sensation. Satisfaction in another's misfortune. It brought her the briefest flash of joy to see him stumble and grasp at his face. Even the burning, stinging feeling in her hand was new and interesting.

"My name is Rei Ayanami. Lady Ayanami, if you insist on your custom. You will call me nothing else, Pilot Ikari."

These new feelings had bolstered her resolve. She felt confident but more than that she felt powerful. Power over her own body to deny him access, yes. More than that, she had dictated how another would speak to her. This was new and wonderful power over her own existence. So empowered Rei did not even flinch under his gaze, beneath those sky blue eyes that hid no emotion and right now were so full with fury she did not give an inch.

"Is that clear?" She asked.

He said nothing. He did nothing at all save for glare at her for several seconds. And then he nodded.

"Good."

And then Rei Ayanami walked away.

* * *

"And so I've not an idea of this came to be or what to do to affect change." Shinji said to Misato. They were finishing dinner, Suzuhara leftovers, at home.

Misato, having listened to Shinji relate the torrid and violent incident with Asuka and Rei's discovery of them, was laughing. Loudly. And so hard her sides were beginning to stitch.

"I sense you lack sympathy for my situation."

"Oh my god... Its like perfect fucking karma!"

Shinji had no more luck finding a sympathetic ear the next day at school.

"Dude, you really don't understand what you did wrong?" Kensuke asked.

"No!" Shinji earnestly replied.

Toji sighed and smacked his own forehead. "Meathead."

While the always understanding Lady Maya had help for him, what she did not have was a moment to hear him out.

"No."

"I've not even explained."

"I saw the camera footage. Now tell me, yes or no, do you really not understand what you did wrong?"

"No."

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"Yes?!"

"I mean No. No, I do not understand why Asuka… did what she did nor why Lady Rei is angry. I tried to explain myself right away but she would not stop to listen."

With that, Maya set down her pen, carefully closed her notebook, sat up nice and straight in her seat and took a deep breath. She really had no other way to prepare to give the freaking alien an introduction to basic interaction with girls.

"Let's talk about Rei first. In case you didn't know, monogamy, that is having only one sexual partner at a time, is the norm here."

"Well of course I knew that, but it's different..." Shinji began, but he stopped when Maya held up her hand for silence.

"No, no matter what you think of the situation, it is not. What happened here, no matter your or Asuka's motives, is that an innocent young girl's first love betrayed her trust and shattered her heart."

"I had not intention to do anything of the sort!"

"And that does not matter at all."

"Of course it matters! It is the fact and reality of what occured."

"Do you want to fix this or not?"

"Fix it?"

"Do you want Rei to talk to you again?"

"Yes."

"Then forget about making her understand your intentions."

"Fine… I am listening."

End

* * *

Next time on Rebuild: A Warrior From A (Counter) Earth:

Reconciliation, new allies, new threats, and plenty of fanservice!

See you next time everyone, and don't forget to leave a review!

P.S. It being October I think the time is right for some creepypasta inspired stuff. Check out The Shinji Ikari One Shots later this month for a story about a multinational organization that fights things beyond human comprehension so the rest of us can live another day. No, not NERV! It's the SCP foundation in _The Shinji Ikari One Shots 20: SCP-5268: Strange Bedfellows_.


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